UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer specifically cited the mistakes of Iraq in denying US permission to use its bases for attacking Iran. But less than two days later he did give permission for the US to use UK bases for ‘defensive’ strikes. There are two simple questions any wartime leader has to answer. What exactly is the aim of this war? And why did it have to start now? Piers Morgan speaks to The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur, author of ‘Being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza’, Peter Beinar, author of ‘Israel And Civilisation’, Josh Hammer, C-PAC chairman Matt Schlapp and IDF spokesman Nadav Shoshani. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Rubio's Clarification and Courage00:04:47
But Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, could not have been clearer.
And what you're expecting me to do is pretend he said the complete opposite.
It seems to me that Rubio slightly misspoke and he had to clarify himself yesterday.
Do you think?
I get it.
I didn't see a man showing any great courage either before, during, or after his demise.
You see cowards all over the Middle East, Europe, and here in America bowing, bowing, bowing to Israel.
Does it take courage to know that you're going to be killed and take on Israel anyway and refuse to bend a knee?
Of course it does.
Just like Bill Maher, when he said the 9-11 guys were obviously terrible terrorists, but did it take courage to run into the buildings?
Of course it did.
Chenk Uyghur, who I'm always reminded has the morality of a cockroach in the IQ of a tadpole.
Then you pander one-shot of Josh, and there's his book with Israel in the title.
Israel!
Everybody serve it!
I have to say that he's published content.
Israel!
Israel!
A crystal clear argument from our leaders is a foundational necessity for going to war.
That's why Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell sacrificed their reputations and legacies for the dodgy dossier which they used to justify invading Iraq.
And that's why muddled messaging on Iran is now wreaking havoc on both sides of the Atlantic.
Prime Minister Stalmer's shifting position has triggered an unprecedented rebuke from President Trump.
And I'm not, by the way, I'm not happy with the UK either.
That island that you read about, the lease, okay, you made it for whatever reason he made a lease of the island.
Somebody came and took it away from him.
And it's taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land there.
It would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours.
So we are very surprised.
This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with.
Well, Stalma specifically cited the mistakes of Iraq in denying U.S. permission to use its bases for attacking Iran.
But less than two days later, he did give permission for the US to use UK bases for defensive strikes.
The net effect is that he's annoying just about everybody.
He could have stood in lockstep with our greatest ally, or he could have taken a bold stand on international law by demanding diplomacy over bombs.
Instead, nobody knows what Stalmer's position really is or whether it will stick.
And frankly, on a far bigger scale, the exact same thing applies to the United States government.
There are two simple questions that any wartime leader has to answer.
What is the aim of this war and why did it have to start now?
Well, for the first few days of his week, we had an answer to the second question.
Israel forced the US into war.
That wasn't a Cheng Yuga conspiracy theory, but the explanation given by very senior Republicans.
There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us.
And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.
Israel faced an existential risk, and they were prepared to strike Iran alone.
If that happened, Iran was very likely to target our troops.
That may address the question of why now?
Why not two weeks ago?
Why not two months from now?
That if Israel fired upon Iran and took action against Iran to take out the missiles, then they would have immediately retaliated against U.S. personnel and assets.
Well, unsurprisingly, that narrative didn't play very well.
And there's now a rush of Republicans, including Rubio himself, explaining why he didn't say what he said.
The same thing applies to the shifting pretext for war.
The nuclear sites were obliterated, but we need to apparently obliterate them again.
The war is to change the regime, but it's not a regime change war or even a war.
The Iranian people must do this on their own.
But as we're learning today, the CIA may arm a Kurdish militia to help them do it.
A crystal clear argument is always essential for several vital reasons.
Voters need to tolerate the cost of war in dollars and in lives.
Servicemen and women need to believe there's a purpose for risking their lives.
Allies need to understand what they're being asked to support.
And most of all, a clear objective means a clear ending.
You can't declare victory if you don't know what victory actually is.
Well, joining me to discuss all this is Chenk Uger, the founder and CEO of the Young Turks, Peter Binart, author of the Bina notebook on Substack, Josh Hammer, author of Israel and Civilization, and the CPAC chairman, Matt Schlapp.
But welcome to all of you.
Matt Schlapp, let me start with you.
Trump's Big Election Gamble00:02:47
Donald Trump's approval rating has fallen to an all-time low.
A significant majority of Americans have turned on him over this war in Iran.
A new Daily Mail JL Partners poll found the president's approval rating now stands at 44%, down four points since Friday, and the lowest rating recorded in Daily Mail tracking to date.
So this is something that was unpopular anyway, has become increasingly unpopular since it started several days ago.
And it represents, as I said at the time, an extremely big gamble by Donald Trump.
I'm not confident to say whether it's going to succeed or not, but I am confident in saying this is the biggest gamble of his presidency in either term and will determine, I think, his legacy.
Are you concerned about this?
I mean, when you see the changing position of the Republicans, which has been flip-flopping around all week as to what the real pretext for this war is, and they're not even calling it a war yet, does it concern you?
Yeah, of course.
I wouldn't call Donald Trump a gambler.
I do think he's a risk taker.
I think, unlike our previous presidents, if he thinks something is in the interest of the United States, he does it.
It's a pretty clear calculus as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's foolish to think that Donald Trump is somehow being led by the nose by Benjamin Netanyahu.
I think that's a bit of a conspiracy theory.
Are our nations closely aligned?
Yes.
Do Netanyahu and Trump have a good relationship?
They do.
Do that we have a similar strategic interest?
Absolutely.
Do I think Donald Trump did this because he received actionable intelligence that Iran still had heightened capabilities when it came to ICBMs and their missile capabilities, which were not taken out by the previous strike, and that their nuclear program, although hobbled, still exists.
And he believed there was more work to do to make sure that those threats were taken care of.
Now, I think anybody who follows American politics would say this is awfully risky politically.
We're in a very important election year.
If Donald Trump loses majorities in the House, he'll be impeached.
If he loses majorities in the Senate, he won't be able to make any big court appointments, including to the Supreme Court.
But I think in his mind, I trust him, number one, and in his mind, he believed this was the right thing to do, not just for Israel.
I think that's a sidebar.
He thought this was the right thing to do for America.
He believed America was vulnerable with an Iran that was so aggressive and had capabilities that expand what maybe most people know.
Cowardly Leaders Pushed Into War00:15:14
Okay, Chenk, welcome back to our senses.
I want to get to your response to that and in particular, the flip-flopping by the likes of Rubio over this question of whether it was a preemptive action because of something that Israel may do or not.
But I just want to talk to you first of all about the little exchange you and I had on X, because I was a little bit bemused by this.
You posted this on Sunday.
I criticized Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khomeini, a thousand times.
He was oppressing his own people and preventing democracy.
But there's one thing you can't take away from him.
He died on his own two feet instead of kneeling to Israel.
That took courage.
He didn't bow.
And I responded to you saying that I didn't think there was anything courageous about this.
He shamefully repressed his people.
He sponsored terrorism all over the world.
That's not cowardly.
That's cowardly, not courageous.
I just wonder whether on reflection you're happy about the wording of the post you made because I just couldn't follow the thread.
Where was he not bowing to Israel?
I mean, the guy was meeting with all his top people, presumably sitting down, ironically, and he got blown to pieces because of his decades of terrorism he waged against Israel.
But I didn't see a man showing any great courage either before, during, or after his demise.
Yeah.
So I definitely want to address what Matt Schlapp just said in the heart of this issue.
But in terms of that issue, Piers, I don't understand why it's so confusing to you.
So, yeah, Ayatollah was a terrible guy.
We've said that on the Young Turks a million times.
And he repressed his own people.
At the same time, as you see cowards all over the Middle East, Europe, and here in America bowing, bowing, bowing to Israel.
And no matter what they do, they bow, they bow.
And so this guy knew that he was going to get killed.
I mean, look at what happened to Hezbollah.
Look at what happened to Hamas.
You know, what you got to give Israel credit for is they're excellent in terms of intelligence and military.
That's why they should fight their own wars and not drag us into it.
But does it take courage to know that you're going to be killed and take on Israel anyway and refuse to bend a knee?
Of course it does.
Where's the question?
Like, you're trying to make it seem like since he has 19 other or 99 other terrible qualities, we have to lie and say that it's not courageous to take on Israel when you know you're going to die.
No, of course.
Okay, but I would say this.
It's a bit like saying, you know, Adolf Hitler was a terrible man.
But because part of him may have thought, well, I may end up dead if I pursue this policy of wanting global domination through Holocaust and other means, that somehow that was an act of courage.
It wasn't.
The guy was a genocidal maniac.
I'm struggling to say what is courageous about this Ayatollah.
Yeah, so Piers, it's so easy to say this guy is bad, so everything about him is bad.
And if anybody says anything good about him, then you're a monster.
For example, the old thing about Hitler being a vegetarian.
So do we have to hate all vegetarians?
Do we have to say that it was a terrible thing that Hitler was a vegetarian?
No one should be a vegetarian.
No, Hitler is a disgusting, terrible person.
Ayatollah was terrible.
By the way, Netyahu is way worse than Ayatollah.
Are we allowed to say anything positive about Netanyahu?
I mean, I think he's strategically brilliant.
Oh, no, you can't say something positive about a person who's terrible.
Yeah, Netanyahu is one of the worst terrorists in the world, but he is not.
Yeah, but that's not the point I'm making.
The point I'm making is where what you've not explained to me is where the courage is in this Ayatollah's position.
He was a ruthless leader who pursued a policy of the people.
Hang on, let me finish.
Hang on, hang on.
Let me articulate what I mean.
So I'm struggling to see what is courageous about ruling over a regime that oppresses its own people, murdering thousands of them only recently.
That's not the case.
But hang on, hang on.
On the foreign stage, it wages a systematic, targeted series of through tentacles like Hamas, Houthis, and Hamas attempts to try and obliterate Israel and everything it stands for.
There's nothing courageous about that.
But Piers, you see what you're doing, right?
You're switching it up.
It's like a three-card monty.
I'm saying he was courageous for taking on Israel when almost all the other world leaders are cowards and kneel before Israel.
And you're saying, wait, it's not courageous to oppress your own people.
Yeah, because that's a different topic.
It's not courageous at all to oppress your own people, especially when you have, what, over a million people in the Iran Revolutionary Guard, even a terribly oppressive government.
That doesn't mean that final act of opposing Israel was courageous.
I mean, look at our cowardly leaders.
Trump bows.
Biden bows.
Kamala Harris bowed.
Mike Johnson, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, they all bow like cowards.
It's a disgusting display.
None of us want to see it.
And so, no, you're not going to get me to back away.
This is, you know what this is exactly.
Okay, let me ask you this.
Let me ask you this.
Hold on, let me finish the thought.
Let me ask you the thought real quick.
10 seconds.
Just like Bill Maher, when he said the 9-11 guys were obviously terrible terrorists.
Obviously, Bill Maher thinks that.
But did it take courage to run into the buildings?
Of course it did.
They're heinous, terrible people, but Bill Maher was right.
Obviously, that's not a cowardly thing to do.
I wish they hadn't done it.
It's a terrible, disgusting thing to do.
But this is kind of obvious.
It just, it feels, you know what it is?
It's like obvious bad faith.
Oh, we caught Jenks saying something that is true, but oh, we can, let's try to use it to smear him and pretend to mention that the Ayatollah was an angel.
That's not remote.
I don't think it was true.
And if it, and if it was Netanyahu who got killed in this war, I'm pretty certain you, Cheng Yuga, would not be lining up to call him courageous because of the way he stood up to the terrorist from Iran.
But he hides behind America.
He hides behind everyone else.
Netanyahu is no courageous.
But on the other hand, as I just told you, as I just told you.
No, no, because Israel is like the safest place on earth.
It has Iron Dome.
It has nukes.
It has the best military in the Middle East to say, and it has all of America backing it, all of Europe backing in.
So that's not any courage.
Like, oh, I ordered America into the war.
That's not courageous.
It is strategically smart, though.
So like, would I make a positive comment about Netanyahu, even though I think he's the biggest terrorist in the world?
Of course I would, because he was brilliant strategically.
He is today.
He uses the Americans as suckers.
He's stolen like $300 billion from us, caused us to fight his wars at the tune of $8 trillion.
He pushed us into the Iraq war.
He just pushed us into the Iran war.
So that is brilliant.
And I don't mind, I get that he wants to protect Israeli interests.
So I give the devil his due, whether it's Netanyahu or the Ayatollah.
All right.
I'm going to come back and get your response to what Matt Slap still on the bigger picture.
But I do want to get the other panelists to comment on this because I'd be very curious if anybody else genuinely thinks that the Ayatollah Khomeini was a man of courage.
Josh Hammer, what's your response to that?
Yeah, Pierce, look, I think it would be very easy to dunk on Chank Uyghur, who I'm always reminded has the morality of a cockroach and the IQ of a tadpole.
I mean, it would be very easy for me to kind of just launch off and explain why this morbidly obese fat oaf just continues to bloviate and bloviate and find himself on the wrong side of every single geopolitical issue.
But I'd rather cut to the actual heart of the substance here, Piers, which is this narrative that's being advanced here, unfortunately, a little bit in your opening monologue as well, which I think is contrary to what was actually said.
So this Marco Rubio clip that's been making the rounds there, Rubio himself literally said was taken remarkably out of context.
You actually played the full clip there.
I mean, it's pretty clear that he didn't say what you peers have said and what many others said that Mark Rubio actually said.
In fact, Donald Trump yesterday, when he was meeting with the Chancellor of Germany there in the White House, was asked point blank, point blank, did Israel drag you into this war?
Donald Trump said no.
If anything, we actually forced their hand.
Marco Rubio reiterated that yesterday, Pete Hegseth reiterating that yet again.
Well, let's play.
Okay.
Hang on.
Let's play the whole Rubio hilarious Israeli propaganda.
Let's play the clip.
Let's play the Rubio clip.
Yesterday, you told us that Israel was going to strike Iran, and that's why we needed to get involved.
Today, the president said that Iran was going to get it.
Yeah, your statement is false.
So that's not what I was asked very specifically.
Were you there yesterday?
Yes, I am.
Okay.
No, did you were you the one that because somebody asked me a question yesterday?
Did we go in because of Israel?
And I said, you asked me, you got a follow-up.
And I said, no, I told you this had to happen anyway.
The president made a decision, and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program, that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks.
That decision had been made.
The president systematically made a decision to systematically destroy this terroristic capability that they had, and we carried that out.
I was very clear in that answer.
This was a question of timing of why this had to happen as a joint operation, not the question of the intent.
Once the president made a decision that negotiations were not going to work, that they were playing us on the negotiations, and that this was a threat that was untenable, the decision was made to strike them.
That's what I said yesterday.
And you guys need to play it.
And if you're going to play these statements, you need to play the whole statement, not clip it, to reach a narrative that you want to do.
All right?
So that was his rebuttal to what he'd said, but this is what he said the day before.
There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us.
And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.
Israel faced an existential risk, and they were prepared to strike Iran alone.
If that happened, Iran was very likely to target our troops.
That may address the question of why now?
Why not two weeks ago?
Why not two months from now?
I mean, it couldn't be clearer.
I'm not sure how we've taken this out of context.
I mean, Rubio made it crystal clear in very simple language that the reason that America took preemptive action is because they understood that we clearly assume Israel was about to attack Iran and that the side effect of that, the consequence of that, would be that Iran would lash out and potentially attack American interests, bases, or whatever.
He couldn't have been clearer.
And what happened then was they realized this was playing incredibly badly when a bunch of Republicans lined up with this same talking point.
Donald Trump reframed the narrative in a different way and then suddenly out they all come saying the complete opposite to what they'd said the day before.
It has come out.
Okay.
We now know over the past 40 hours, it's come out that this operation was planned, Peters, for months and months.
We now know that the Jared Kushner-Seve Wickhoff negotiations were what many of us said they were, which is a red herring and a decoy.
That has all come out.
This is in the works.
Trump and Antony working hand in glove, planning this joint by national operation for months and months and months now.
What they are saying is that the reason that it happened literally on Saturday, the actual ultimate reason is that the CIA found out that Khamenei was going to be physically present at this meeting with all the rest of the top council.
That is the actual reason that the CIA got the intelligence.
They've said that also publicly.
It's all publicly available.
So we now know that because of that, perhaps because Israel was saber-rattling about a possible last minute right there.
That's why it happens literally this Saturday and not last Saturday, not next Saturday.
But the fact that the two countries were going to go in together there, apparently that decision was made months ago.
Again, that's all publicly available now.
The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, they've all been reporting that the two countries have been planning this thing for months.
The only debate happening, but literally, literally right now, because the CIA found out how many would be their peers.
Fine.
I'm not disputing that there may have been conversations going on for months about whether to do this.
I'm simply saying that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, could not have been clearer in his public statements 48 hours ago when he was asked about this, that the reason for America and the attack on Iran was because they had information that Iran was going to get attacked by somebody else that we presume to be Israel.
And therefore, this would then imperil potentially American interests coming back the other way from Iran.
And it couldn't have been clearer.
I mean, what they're expecting us to do, and what you're expecting me to do, is to listen to Marco Rubio's own words on camera and pretend he said the complete opposite.
He couldn't have been clearer.
And then they've done a complete screeching U-turn because they realize it looks ridiculous for the United States of America to have a position of saying we had a preemptive need to do this.
But actually, it turns out the preemptive need was Israel attacking Iran.
I'm shocked that this is so difficult for some people to grasp, apparently, including you, Pierce.
Really hard.
This was planned for months.
It was literally planned for months.
What I'm saying that it happened, it seems to me that Rubio slightly misspoke and he had to clarify himself yesterday.
Again, it's been, I'm not defending every single line that was said there, but the president of the United States could not possibly have been clearer there.
This has been planned for months.
What Rubio is saying is that the actual reason happened on Saturday.
It seems to me, if I'm trying to kind of put all these strings together, these strands together, it seems to me that the reason it starred on Saturday was a combination, one, of possible Israeli intelligence about a strike there.
They wanted to go be preemptive, combined with the fact that the CIA, apparently was CIA non-Mossad, the CIA found out that Khamenei would be at this meeting.
Those are the two things, it seems, that made this operation start this past Saturday, not two Saturdays ago, not two Saturdays from now.
The fact this is going to happen, apparently that decision was made months and months and months ago.
Then all they had to do was say we were in this with Israel from the start.
We planned it together and we went in together.
It's very straightforward positioning.
And we both felt that there was a need to launch a preemptive joint attack because we believed that we were both going to be under attack from Iran.
They didn't say that.
Let me bring in Peter Beinhart.
You know, I try and be fair and dispassionate, Peter, about all these things.
I like to judge people on what comes out of their mouths.
You know, and I'm afraid Marco Rubio is damned by what came out of his mouth.
He is one of the most powerful men in America right now.
I actually think he's been one of Trump's better performers actually in his role as Secretary of State.
But you cannot watch those two clips and not conclude he said one thing, then pretended he said something completely different.
Right, but I think it's worth distinguishing two things.
I think it may well be that the United States attacked when it did because it thought Israel was Israel's about to attack.
But it still begs the question of why the United States didn't stop Israel from attacking.
Israel has wanted, particularly Benjamin Netanyahu, who has wanted America to go into war against Iran for a very, very long time.
Hubris Behind Military Action00:03:05
I think the other critical ingredient here, the thing that changed, the thing that changed was not Israel wanting to be in a war against Iran.
It was Donald Trump's mounting hubris as after the Venezuela operation.
I think what's happened is that Donald Trump, after attacking in his first term, Soleimani, and not getting a significant Iranian response, and then the 12-day war last year, and now the attack on Venezuela, Trump now sees military action as a political winner for him, right?
Something that makes him look good.
And I don't think he's smart enough to recognize that he's now bitten off something which is fundamentally different than what he does in Venezuela.
He even said yesterday, according to the New York Times, that they want to do in Venezuela, in Iran, what they did in Venezuela.
So I think the critical shifting aspect is not Israel.
It's Trump's growing hubris about what American military action can produce.
Well, I'll come to check now for the bigger picture question, which I didn't ask you the first time, which is if you're right, if I'm from Donald Trump, and I'm trying to explain why I think there's a consistency to what I'm doing here.
Trump doesn't believe in putting boots on the ground so far.
He believes in surgically decapitating things and people, right?
He believes in going in and taking out individuals or having very short attacks on nuclear capability or whatever it may be.
In Venezuela, classic Trump, no boots on the ground, middle of a night attack, special forces snatching Maduro and his wife, get them out, no American dead.
This is what he does.
This is what he's always done.
And he distinguishes in his head between that and putting big boots on the ground for a ground invasion.
And there is clearly a qualitative difference.
In Venezuela, he's taken a bet that if you get rid of Maduro, that the regime may stay in place, but they've now had the ultimate warning.
You play by our rules or you're going to be next.
And it puts them back in a box that can be controlled or not as threatening to United States interests.
I think he's thinking the same thing can happen in Iran, where it's highly unlikely that he's going to get any kind of revolution of the kind that he talks about.
I think it's far more likely and achievable because of the sheer power of the United States military, that what could happen is you could have the regime remaining in place, but severely neutered to a degree that it has no ability to progress with its nuclear program and actually has no ability to represent much of a threat to the United States or Israel or anybody else.
And it may be that that is what their actual game plan is here without putting boots on the ground.
And that may end up being successful.
I don't know.
None of us know, right?
But if it was successful, it would at least have the benefit of being consistent with Trump's overall philosophy that you don't need to commit thousands of troops on the ground to effect regime control.
Yeah, this is all nonsense.
Look, could Trump's hubris be a part of it?
Of course.
Israel's Behest Narrative00:14:59
Of course he has hubris.
Does he want to dip in and out of war?
Yeah, I guess he does.
But why does he want to go into war in the first place?
That's the central question.
Because he ran on anti-war.
He ran on America first.
Right now, we're not doing anything about grocery prices.
Oil prices are going higher.
The economy is slipping into a disaster, both higher inflation and higher unemployment.
But he's obsessed with complying with Israel's demands.
So Josh said something hilarious about how Marco Rubio misspoke.
Well, Tom Cotton said the same thing.
He's a senator, and Mike Johnson's the Speaker of the House.
So he said the same thing.
Caroline Levitt, the White House spokesperson, said the same thing.
So they all misspoke?
No, they had their stated reason, which was Israel was not going to listen to us because they're the boss of us and they were going to go bomb and endanger our troops.
So we had to jump in on that and catch up to Israel and do as they command.
So now, you mentioned in the beginning, Piers, you know, it turns out it's not a Jank Uger conspiracy theory.
It's real.
But think about the framing of conspiracy theories that our national media talks about.
So I say, for example, and these are all verifiable facts, and they agree, these are facts.
94% of Congress gets money from the Israeli lobby.
The number one lifetime donor to Donald Trump is Israeli lobby, $337 million, number one lifetime donor.
$390 lobby lifetime.
Jeffrey, Chuck Schumer, et cetera.
Hold on, let me finish.
So now the New York Times and others look at that and go, it is a conspiracy that billions of dollars given to scummy politicians would affect them.
I think that that's the conspiracy theory is that it wouldn't affect them.
Of course it's a conspiracy.
Israel has bought our government.
Hold on.
Israel has bought our government lock, stock, and barrel.
And did they do something else as well, you know, with this Operation Epstein's Fury in terms of getting blackmail on people?
Yes, it's entirely possible because Epstein in every interaction was trying to help Israel, procured cyber weapons for Israel.
So we have an enormous Israeli lobbying operational.
Let me bring to say that they are when they obviously are.
Yeah, we got Israelis driven Trump to every war.
Everywhere.
I get it.
I want to say it.
Don't deny it when it's not.
I'm going to come to Matt to respond.
What I would say, Chenk, is you are in danger of getting to the stage where if there is inclement weather in America, you instinctively blame Israel.
And I do think I've got to be slightly careful.
No, you don't just sound like Israel is responsible for Israel.
Let me not read that enough there.
Let me bring it like they almost control all of Coast.
Yes, because they literally donated to the situation.
94% of Congress.
Let me bring it up.
Let me bring it back up a minute.
Let me bring Israel at Washington.
Go ahead.
Let me go.
Please don't talk.
I don't want to mute you, Cheng.
So let Matt Schlapp respond.
Right.
So I do think Israel is in charge of your brain.
But the fact is, AIPAC and these other lobbies, it's true.
They were very powerful in Washington, D.C. for a long period of time.
And I do believe that you could argue that they were one of the most effective lobbies 25 years ago.
Over time, I will just tell you, someone has been in this town.
Their effectiveness from them and others has deteriorated.
It's deteriorated to the point that even in Republican and conservative circles, we all have been watching this debate, this acrimony from people who are leading voices in the conservative movement about wanting to rejigger their priorities in the Middle East and step away from Israel.
So the idea that somehow politicians are bought and paid for by an Israeli lobby and somehow that's preventing people from having heterodox views is absurd.
We're watching this all happen in real time.
The reason why Donald Trump acted is not because Jared Kushner's Jewish or because some real estate guys who are Jewish gave him money.
The reason why, or Bibi Netanyahu forced him to act, these are conspiracy theories.
Or I don't even know where you're going with Jeffrey Epstein.
The reason he acted is because many, several presidents in a row have looked at the prospects of taking aggressive steps in Iran because Iran chants death to America on a regular basis through leading sponsor of terrorism around the globe, including towards Americans.
And we can go through the dozens and dozens examples of the outrageous behavior that moderate Arab states also know is a massive danger.
That's the story that doesn't get told here.
Most moderate Arab states, despite what they say publicly, are all for defanging Iran.
And Donald Trump did this because he thought it was in the interest of the American people, not because he's playing games with polls or politics, but because he believed as the commander in chief, this was the right time to act in our interest as Americans.
Okay, just hold far.
He just said that it was conspiring to be able to do that.
I hate it that the panelists.
Hang on, please.
Going to ask the panel, if I could ask the panel just to have some patience just for five minutes.
Uh, joining me now is the IDF spokesman, Nadav Shoshani.
Welcome to you, mr Shoshani.
Um look, we.
I don't know how much of that you may have been listening to, but there is a narrative that many people are promoting that this has all been done at Israel's behest.
It was a narrative that Marco Rubio and others uh explicitly laid out.
They said, look, the reason America uh launched a strike when they did was because they knew that Israel were going to and that the response would come back from Iran and that might threaten American interests, and that's why America had to be preempted, which is now.
They've now changed that position after the blowback they got.
But what is the truth?
I mean, is the truth that Israel decided to do this and America then decided, well, if you do it, we're going to have to do something too, or is, as some of my panelists have have argued, something that's been in the works for months and months and months and there's always going to be a joint operation?
Well Pierce, first of all, thanks for having me, and i'm i'm glad to see you're doing better.
Uh and uh, i'll answer the question.
First of all, we've seen, i've heard the Americans speak very loud and clear, all American leadership about it.
I'm not a spokesperson for the Americans, but I can say uh, as someone who's been in the inner rooms and the idea um, that is not, not a real claim, it's not close to the truth.
Um, I think that even even if anyone thought that um, America does not want to be dragged by Israel, but being in the rooms, knowing what's been happening in recent weeks and months, has no real, no relation to reality.
Uh, this is a joint operation with a mutual enemy, shared interests, shared values, shared enemy.
When they yell death to America, they yell death to Israel.
When they yell death to Israel, they yell death to America.
But I can explicitly say, since i'm an IDF spokesperson, knowing the planning for weeks and months uh, saying that Israel decided to attack alone and the?
U.s was dragged into it is just completely false.
What people are struggling to understand is that last year, in the 12-day war, there was a specific attack on Iran's nuclear capability which we were told had been incredibly successful.
And yet here we are less than a year later significantly less than a year later with apparently a need to go to a full, full-blown war with them because they still have the ability to uh, have nuclear capability, and people are struggling to put those two positions together.
They're like, well, we thought we destroyed.
That was.
The whole point of what happened last summer was that was the end of that nuclear threat.
Why is that threat now, within eight, nine months now, deemed to be so imminent that they they have to be exposed to a full-blown war?
Well, that that's a great question.
And, first of all, your statement is absolutely correct.
We we gave a very heavy blow Israel and the United States Of America to the Iranian nuclear program.
But what happened after the 12-day war is Ayatollah Khamina and Iranian leadership decided, we're going to go full in, we're going to go full in on ballistic missiles and we're going to do whatever we can to make sure that we will obtain a nuclear weapon.
Now two things happened that are very disturbing.
The first one is them hiding and digging deeper and concealing and fortifying their nuclear program.
The idea is that even if they don't have nuclear weapons now, or they're not even producing now, but by the time that we understand something is happening, it's too late.
And even the best technology, best bombers in the world won't be able to use that.
So that's that's one ticking time bomb.
The second one is the ballistic missiles.
What we're seeing in the last four or five days is incredible.
Unbelievable attacks by Iran towards the entire region, including European countries, including Australian, French, British assets in the region.
And this is just a preview to how the reality would look like a year or two away if Iran continued in the pace of producing many hundreds of ballistic missiles a year.
They were planning, we know this, they were planning to reach high numbers of ballistic missiles all the way up to 8,000, 10,000 missiles and get to a place where no one can deal with them.
They are creating an immunity for them that no one would dare deal with them.
And what we're seeing right now in recent days shows the exact intent of the Iranian regime, but on a much smaller scale, because we caught this in the right timing.
And by the way, one more important thing that's really important to mention.
We also had a golden opportunity.
We have golden intelligence that's been built up together with Americans for weeks on targeting Ayatollah Khamenei and the entire leadership, leading the way for the Iranian war machine.
And we were able to make a real change because what happened after the 12-day war, Ayatollah Khamineh decided we're going all in.
Our lesson from the 12-day war is let's fight even harder.
And I can guarantee you at least one thing.
Ayatollah Khamineh will not be leading the way again all in against Israel and America.
Well, he may not, but his son might.
He's being apparently promoted to be the new supreme leader.
And the reality is the Revolutionary Guard remains intact and there are over 200,000 of them.
There are half a million more paramilitaries loyal to the regime.
There's a standing army of nearly a million more who are also loyal to the regime.
And at the moment, there is no sign of the uprising by the people of Iran that Donald Trump was suggesting he hoped would happen.
And so that begs the question, as with any war when it gets started, is, well, what is the end game?
What is victory?
If the people do not rise up and overthrow the regime in the way that Donald Trump has clearly hoped for, then what does victory look like?
I can speak on behalf of the IDF and on behalf of Israel.
Our goal is to remove a gun that's pointed at our heads, and it's a loaded gun.
That's our goal, to degrade the Iranian regime capabilities to pose an existential threat for us, but also an enormous threat for the entire region.
Three continents all the way to Eastern Europe.
They are posing a threat to everyone.
So that is our goal.
But I'll tell you something more than that.
The Iranian regime is not a small army.
They have multiple armies.
They're an enormous country, 10 times the population of Israel.
We did not say this would be something short or simple, but we do this because not because it's easy, because we need to.
Because if you don't do this right now, we'll face something much, much worse later.
And success for us, if you're asking victory for us, would mean that we would not need to fight Iran for a long time to come.
Maybe it's because we've degraded them so far, and maybe it's because they're not trying to kill us after this operation is all said and done.
But what we want to do is make a real change, take this loaded gun that's to our heads and remove it for a prolonged period of time.
But that just finally, that does seem to be an acceptance on your part, and correct me if I'm wrong, that victory may end up with the regime intact because it's so big and the technical spread so far, it's impossible to overthrow that regime or to change it in a conventional sense, but that it becomes so neutered that it no longer represents a clear and present threat to Israel.
Is that what you're saying?
Well, as an IDF spokesperson, we're looking at military threats and how we deal with those threats and remove them from Israel.
And we're looking at those threats and acting to remove them actively.
Now, no one, everyone in the Middle East understands how dangerous this regime.
People in Israel remember having good relationships with Iran.
We're not in war with the people of Iran.
We would be happy to see them liberated, but that's not an official goal of the war.
That is not a military goal.
By the way, I have Iranian family and a little bit far past, but we would be happy to not need to fight this war.
But we have to fight this war right now because this is a regime that for 50 years has been doing, not just saying, but doing everything they can to kill us.
And the last year alone, Pierce, this is amazing.
While they've been in the worst economical situation in Iran, maybe in their entire history, people have no water.
They invested almost a billion dollars in proxies in the Middle East, most of it going to Hezbollah.
So when people in Iran don't have water, this regime is doing everything they can to kill us.
So I think everyone agrees this regime is not good, but our goal to this operation, military goals, is to look at the threats, to make sure that Israel is not posing an existential threat and to act against it.
Okay, RDS spokesman, Nadav Shoshani, I appreciate you coming on sense.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me, Pierce.
Let's go back to the panel.
Let me bring in Josh Hammer there.
I mean, it just seems to me that, you know, I've got a lot of military in my family.
My brother was a British Army colonel.
My brother-in-law is a British Army Colonel and so on.
You know, the rule one of when you start a war is you've got to know what victory looks like for everyone's sake, for the armed forces that take part in it, for the people of the countries that you're at war with and so on.
And yet it seems here, no one seems to be quite sure.
Is the goal regime change?
If so, how does that get achieved without boots on the ground?
Most experts think that's completely impossible with a country the size of Iran.
If it's not regime change, is it a damaged regime which stays in power, a bit like we've seen with, say, Venezuela?
You know, where's the victory here?
When does this war end because victory has been achieved?
And what does that victory look like?
So, Piers, I can speak for what I believe is America's national interest in this war and what I think Donald Trump's end goals.
I obviously can't speak for a different country.
I think that Nadav just spoke quite well from his country's perspective.
Defining Victory in Iran00:10:07
From a U.S. perspective, I think that Pete Hegseth and General Kane, here's Cheng Giger doing the whole anti-Semitic thing.
Okay, very, very principal.
So says Khamenei's chiefs now.
Sorry, can I just jump in?
Of course, Josh Hammer is an American.
I profoundly disagree with Josh Hammer's political views, but he's an American Jew.
He's not an Israeli.
We should be clear about these.
When you've lost Peter Beinard, you have seriously lost him.
I would just say that.
I think we have to be careful.
We have to be careful about this change.
No, no, Peter.
Peter.
Peter.
This has nothing to do with Jewish Americans.
No, it has to do with scum who represent Israel and are loyal to Israel.
And by the way, it's not at all just Jewish Americans.
It's actually mostly Christians like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz and Trump and Biden and Kamala Harris who serve Israel like dogs.
All right, Khamenei Islam has some words to say here.
Let's get back to Pierce's question.
Okay, so America's interest, Pierce, as defined by Pete Hegseth and Dan Kane at their Pentagon press conferences for the past few days, is, as I understand it, as follows.
At minimum, the severe crippling of the Iranian regime, the severe decapitation of their ballistic missile programs, preventing them from acquiring intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach Western Europe and perhaps the East Coast United States, finally delivering a fatal blow to their nuclear program.
There has not been a clear articulation as to whether or not the goal here is to see the entire mullahs, the entire IRGC, all of that to be ended.
In fact, if I'm being very candid with you, I think that there is actually a real world where a year from now, I think that it actually could look like what you suggest it could look like.
This could look like a Del C Rodriguez post-Chavez, post-Maduro type situation in Venezuela.
I do think it's also possible, to be clear, that the exiled crown prince Reza Palevi could be called back in to lead some sort of transition period that could be a civil war.
I don't really know, frankly.
I don't think that I don't think that anyone knows exactly what it's going to look like.
But the goal here is to deliver a severe crippling to this most despotic and tyrannical regimes.
And at minimum, at minimum of nothing else, to give the non-clerical, the non-theocratic, non-Islamo-fascist elements within the country of Iran, of which there are many.
That's the majority of the country here.
Tens and tens of millions of people, people that have been slaughtered, slaughtered by the horrific regime that Shank Uyghur is infamously now calling courageous there.
It's to give them a fighting chance to take back their country.
That is the goal here.
Whether or not it will all work out, who knows?
It could be just dealing with a severely crippled IRGC, a less radical mullah that is a more restrained second, third-rate power in the region there.
That's entirely possible.
But for now, I think it's going staggeringly well, and we should definitely applaud all of our efforts.
I mean, Peter Beinhardt, it seems to me that notwithstanding the confusion about the mission statements that have been made by the Americans and Israelis, that it seems to me a gigantically stupid strategic error by the Iranians to start attacking all the other Gulf states.
All they seem to have done by doing that is rather than, as they've tried to do in recent years, put up a wedge between Saudi Arabia and Israel, for example, by what they did in helping Hamas commit the atrocities of October the 7th.
What they hoped by doing that, one of the aspirations clearly, was to stop Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords.
But here, by attacking sites in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, in Dubai, what they've done is galvanize these Gulf states now against Iran and ironically, you know, on the side of America and Israel.
I would say it's now far more likely that Saudi Arabia will end up joining the Abraham Accords than it was last week.
Yeah, it may well be a strategic mistake for Iran to do that, but I'm not Iranian.
I'm an American.
I get on the subway every day in New York and I see people who our government isn't giving the basic decencies of life, a home, enough food.
And then I think, is it a good use of my government's money to be spending billions and billions of dollars to attack a country that with an absolutely odious regime that poses no threat to the United States?
I mean, come on, let's be real, right?
Iran doesn't have a single nuclear weapon.
The United States has thousands of nuclear weapons.
You know how much more the United States probably spends as much on its military in a day as Iran spends in a year, right?
You think you can go to the American people who can see that this country has desperately, you don't give our people health care.
We have a deteriorating infrastructure.
People are suffering and say this is the best use of our money.
Beyond that, I just want to say, because I would like you, Pierce, if you could, to get one of the parents of those 175 children who were killed in that school that the United States or Israel bombed in southern Iran.
And hang on, Peter.
Peter, let me stop you there.
Let me stop you there because we went through all this.
We've been through all this in Gaza and I've learned to be patient about these things because we don't actually know for a fact yet what happened with that school.
It was clearly an appalling incident.
Clearly, many, many young girls were killed in that school.
Clearly, the school used to be until recently part of the Revolutionary Guard base that was in the United States.
It was nearly recent.
But several years ago, it got separated and has been a separate entity.
Now, there are various things that could have happened here.
It could have been struck mistakenly by an Israeli or American missile, of course.
It could also be, as some people have suggested, it could have been an attempt by the Revolutionary Guard to stop a missile coming in that has gone horribly wrong.
And it's not that.
Can I respond to that?
Just for viewers, just for viewers who are not up to speed.
Yes.
Hang on, Peter.
Peter, hang on.
Let me finish my point, please.
The reason it's important is that, well, it's important to know the facts, right?
It's a bit like when the three American fighter jets were taken down, the initial reporting was all over the place about that.
And I preferred to wait.
And now it turns out it was friendly fire from a QAT pilot who mistook them for Iranians.
So I just think we need to get to facts before you bring it up.
I know, Pierce.
I understand.
This was definitely an Israeli missile.
Pierce.
Pierce.
Even if it was an Iranian missile that was fired in response to the attack from Israel and the United States, right?
Even if it was an Iranian missile, those girls would still be alive today if the United States and Israel had not launched the attack.
So you are right.
We don't know who launched the missile, but we know that if the U.S. and Israel had not attacked a country that poses no serious threat to them, Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons.
America has thousands, that those girls would be alive.
Okay, but I would also say to that, that is indisputable.
It is indisputable to me.
Well, hang on, Matt, please.
Hang on, please.
Let me finish my point.
Matt, let me just make the point.
You're probably going to make the same point, which is if you're Israel, you have had 47 years of this regime in Iran wedded to your destruction to the extent that Iran has absolutely, indisputably sponsored Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, in a concerted effort to take out Israel.
So, regardless of what you think of Israel, that is indisputable.
They've also, by the way, consistently.
Well, it is.
Pierce, do you know that Israel sold Iran weapons in the 1980s under the Ayatollah Khomeini?
Just I want to stop there for a second.
In fact, some of the weapons that Hezbollah has used against Israeli forces, Haarez, the Israel newspaper has reported, were likely sold to Iran by Israel, not under the Shah, under Ayatollah.
I think there is probably shocking hypocrisy on arms sales from all countries.
Because the point is, but Peter, but Peter, Peter, just answer my point.
Do you dispute that Iran has been very instrumental in funding terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis against Israel?
Would you dispute that?
Absolutely, they have funded those groups against Israel, but it doesn't mean we're in agreement.
But it doesn't mean they pose an existential threat.
Iran also endorsed the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, in which it said it would recognize Israel's existence if Israel allowed a Palestinian state in the West Bank in Gaza and there was an agreement on refugee Yes, Iran, for its own cynical reasons, uses the Palestinian cause and others to try to gain influence in the Middle East.
That is not the same as saying it's an existential threat to a country that has nuclear weapons on submarines, has a massive nuclear deterrent, and is massively more powerful than them.
And the point I was making about the 1980s, and then I'll stop, is the reason Israel wasn't afraid of Iran in the 1980s, in fact, sold them weapons, was at that point they saw Iraq as the greater threat.
It was only when Iraq became weaker that they turned to saying Iran is the existential threat.
And mark my words: if Iran is destroyed by this war, we will have people like our guests here coming on a year from now and saying it's Turkey and Turkey needs to be attacked because there will always be some country that's willing to support the Palestinian cause, maybe for their own reasons, and Israel will declare that country an existential threat, whether it is or not.
Rest of type of people.
Look, let me bring in let me bring in Matt then Chenk.
Let me bring in Matt first because you wanted to get in there.
I know.
Matt, you're checking.
I just feel like it's hypercritical to say that these attacks harmed women and children when those women and children, the young girls that you reference would live a life in a barbaric, unequal society behind a burqa with no ability to make career choices.
You know, the human rights in Iran is nothing that you should use as the focal point.
No, that's not what I'm saying either.
Controversy Over Dollar Support00:05:47
And I will admit, from my point of view, all of this is controversial.
Pierce started off by saying, isn't it controversial that Donald Trump is doing this?
And I think I need to be honest from my point of view.
It is.
It's controversial.
There are a lot of MAGA America first people who are surprised.
So they were going to be covered up in a burden in Europe.
The question to this is if I could, I'll summarize quickly.
But the answer to this is there's a tremendous amount of trust, Pierce, towards Donald Trump's judgment on these things.
And really, nobody who's a serious mind in politics believes that Donald Trump was blackmailed or leveraged or led by the nose into this decision.
He made this decision because he thought it was in the long-term best interest of the American people.
And there is a chance that his decision-making around the strikes in Iran will result in a better situation, not just in Iran for the people of Iran who are long-suffering, but for the region.
And if that ends up happening, I actually think politically it'd be a very positive thing.
Okay, Cheng, follow what you said about Iraq, right?
Yeah.
Look, they're not comparable, but if we go down the line, Iraq, I will admit that.
Hey, Matt, political disaster.
You were wrong about Iraq because you serve Israel.
You're wrong about Iran because you serve Israel.
So let's see.
Everyone gets the reality we got.
I serve many times.
That part is funny.
That part is funny.
Disgusting slaughter.
So I thought it was my turn to talk.
I thought it was my turn.
You can talk, but you can't make fun of it.
Everybody live without it.
Yeah, I got it.
People can move along without serving Israel.
You're already yapped for it.
Don't worry.
You'll get to check.
Don't worry.
You'll get to check.
So I, like, for example, I could say that Josh is Israel first.
Yeah, sure, I know.
So maybe that's humble.
Anyway, like, what is going on?
So, Josh, I say Josh is Israel first, and then you guys flip out over it.
Then you pander one-shot of Josh, and there's his book with Israel in the title.
Israel!
Everybody says that it's a good idea.
I have closed a federal Kiels judge.
I have spoken in Yale Law School, Horror Law School, published Connor, literally Israel on the bookshelf.
That's right behind me.
I've taken my oath to the Constitution.
I have been in one country and one of the people who are not.
One triangle is a book about America.
It is a actually, if you've written a lot of people, God How America has to do with the world.
The books are actually about America.
The book is about people in Western civilization.
No, if you were less of a retarded person, The show refers actually to the children of Israel, to the biblical inheritance, something that you don't know a damn thing about because you serve.
The Bible says we have to serve pagan as long as you're not going to be able to do all this propaganda our whole life.
You know what?
Let me jump in.
Let me jump in.
Well, let me jump in because actually I'm going to make a statement, not a question, which is, actually, Chenk, of all my guests in the last three years on Uncensored, probably the one who's mentioned the word Israel the most is you.
Shocker.
Because, okay, so can I explain why?
So, guys, very quickly, you've got one minute explain why.
Yeah, okay, Peter and I keep arguing, hey, we should take care of the American people, our health care, our wages, etc.
Everybody else is saying, had this giant conversation about Israel's interests.
And then I say, hey, look, obviously, guys, they've given billions to our politicians, so we're ignoring the elephant in the room.
Yes, the conspiracy theory is that the national media says that our politicians are so moral, so decent, that they are not affected by the billions of dollars that the Israeli lobby has given them.
That is a conspiracy theory.
So, number one, we have no interest in this war.
We already destroyed their nuclear facilities.
Their ballistic missiles cannot reach us.
So, when we talk about their ballistic missiles, we're all admitting this is a war for Israel.
Israel cares about their ballistic missiles.
They can reach the European Union.
We had no problems with their ballistic missiles until we attacked them.
And then, this outrageous thing of like, can you believe Iran has attacked the countries that has attacked it?
Of course.
When you launch a war against the country, what did you think they were going to do?
Has Cheng heard about the hostage crisis in Tehran that he heard about the baby battle?
I didn't know anything about the people.
I'm so worried about the American regime.
I thought it was going to give us a regime that was found in the US.
You know why I shared it?
It was literally 500 years ago.
Every time I start talking, some Israeli puppet comes in and goes, I was talking about the six Americas dead and how so many more Americans are going to die for Israel because our scum politicians have taken, and no one disputes this, billions of dollars from the Israeli lobby.
That is why they serve Israel.
And it's all meeting.
This story has a long way to go.
This story has a long way to go.
Yes, Joe Biden is corrupt.
Donald Trump is corrupt.
They've taken tens and hundreds of millions of dollars from Israeli libraries.
I'm going to leave it there for the sake of your blood vessels, Chenk.
I appreciate you all joining me.
Thank you very much.
No, I'm perfectly calm.
Get Israel out of our country and we'll be in great shape.
You sound like not Israelis.
That is not a conspiracy theory.
That's an American theory.
Got it.
Thank you very much.
Serve Israel, the rest of you, except Peter.
Okay, thank you.
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