“Shut The F*CK Up!” Joe Kent Quits Over Israel & Trump Attacks ‘Weak’ NATO | With Glenn Beck
Joe Kent - a Gold Star husband, retired Green Beret, and veteran of 11 combat tours - has dramatically resigned as the U.S.’s top counterterrorism official, just days after being appointed by President Donald Trump. In a statement, Kent said he could not support the ongoing war in Iran, arguing the country posed no imminent threat and claiming the conflict was driven by pressure from Israel and its allies. His remarks have sparked fierce backlash, with prominent conservative voices calling for scrutiny of his actions. Trump has since distanced himself from Kent, publicly criticizing his judgment. The fallout highlights growing divisions within the conservative movement over the war. Meanwhile, tensions continue to rise globally, with Trump now warning NATO allies over the Strait of Hormuz and even threatening to reconsider U.S. involvement in the alliance. Piers Morgan is joined by his panel of retired US army officer and commanding general, Ben Hodges, former UK ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sir Richard Dalton, founder and CEO of The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur and co-host of The Verdict With Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson. Piers is also joined by founder of Blaze Media, Glenn Beck, Iranian activist Masih Alinejad and former Iran women's soccer player, Shiva Amini, who fled the country after being photographed playing without a hijab. 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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World War III Risk00:02:59
How this works out, I don't know.
Could be fabulous, could be World War III.
When the Americans ask Britain to help, we've got to say yes.
That is part of the special relationship.
You're a kind of British policy, I'm afraid, is a travesty.
No, hang on.
The Straight Formuze.
The idea that Donald Trump didn't think of it, that is one of the biggest narrative lies I've seen in a long time.
Just to correct you on one thing, Trump literally said yesterday, nobody expected that about the Straight Formuze.
Every time I start talking, some Israel First son of a bitch comes in and starts talking over me.
America first, right there.
American flag brown.
Oh, yeah, yeah, my ass.
Cheng, for 15 minutes, you've managed to stay relatively calm.
Don't blow it out.
Look, they spent billions on day one.
You're cutting me off peers.
These are tiny amounts of money you're talking about.
Tiny amounts of money.
Piers, are you mental?
$137 million!
Joe Kent is a gold star husband, a retired Green Beret, and a veteran of 11 combat tours across 20 years' service in the U.S. Army.
He blamed the October 7th terror attack on America's failure to curtail Iran's threat.
And amid a flurry of media criticism about reported links to far-right groups, he publicly disavowed the likes of Nick Fuentes.
All of this earned him the endorsement of American Conservative commentators as he sought political office.
President Trump then appointed him as the top counter-terrorism official in the U.S., a position from which he dramatically resigned yesterday.
His statement said, I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.
Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.
It's clear that we've started this war due to pressure from Israel and his powerful American lobby.
Well, Joe Kent is now facing the full force of the war spin machine, spearheaded by Ben Shapiro, Lindsey Graham, and Mark Levine, who says he should be investigated for espionage.
What are you doing?
You're giving aid and comfort to a lie.
There was an imminent threat.
How much more evident could you be within two weeks, having enough material to make 10 bombs?
How close could you come?
Not much.
Now, that is conspiracy trash.
It's also kind of strange since President Trump has said that it's conspiracy trash.
So apparently, Trump is so deeply, deeply enthralled to those strange, powerful American lobbies.
We're not going to say it, we're not going to say it, we're not going to say it.
That he apparently has been so bamboozled by them that he's still under the impression that he's his own man.
Well, for his part, President Trump, who appointed Joe Kent as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said he's not a smart person and has always been weak on security.
If nothing else, it's another lesson in how quickly the worm can turn on those who step out of line.
And in a much more consequential pivot, the president is now threatening to leave NATO altogether over its failure, as he sees it, to help police the Strait of Hormus.
NATO's making a very foolish mistake.
And I've long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us.
Iranian Nuclear Surprise00:07:11
So this was a great test because we don't need them, but they should have been there.
Well, it's the fact that every single one of America's allies has a major interest in opening the Strait of Hormuz to the billions of barrels of oil which was supposed to pass through it.
It's also a fact that the world's oil was flowing freely through the Open Strait until Israel and the United States started this war.
And the crisis over Hormus is really a perfect snapshot of the entire Iran saga.
No amount of bombing is going to ever change the fact that Iran's border covers the entire 100-mile waterway.
It will always be able to choke the world's economy with its divers, mines, and small boats unless the regime is changed or controlled.
And that will take precisely the type of conflict that everybody says they want to avoid.
Well, joining me to discuss all of this is Ben Hodges, retired U.S. Army officer and commanding general.
It's Richard Dalton, the former UK ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Chen Uger, founder and CEO of the Young Turks, and Ben Ferguson, co-host of The Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Well, welcome to all of you, some old friends and some new faces.
It should be a lively debate here.
Let me start with you, Ben Hodges.
You're a retired American Army officer.
You're a commanding general.
From a purely military perspective, what is your assessment of how this war has gone so far?
Well, of course, I have to tip my hat to the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, and the Israeli Air Forces, and our intelligence professionals who have helped them accomplish what's been done so far.
I mean, there's no denying, from a military standpoint, enormous damage done to Iran's military capabilities.
Right.
Could two things be true at once, that that is all true, and that the combined firepower of the American and Israeli military has been overwhelmingly successful purely at targeting Iranian military assets and so on.
But that at the same time, the Iranians have been fighting a slightly tangential war, which has been throttling the Strait of Hormuz and attacking the neighboring Gulf states in a way that is clearly deterring people from visiting them and clearly making a lot of people get on planes and get out of there.
And that their strategy appears to be meeting military might with economic tactics, which are proving to be unexpectedly effective.
Well, you've put your finger on the key issue.
What our military is doing is exactly what they were told to do, but that's not going to get us to where we need to be strategically.
There are, in fact, two wars going on in parallel.
The Iranians are fighting a completely different war, partly because they knew that they would never be able to stand up to U.S. and Israeli firepower.
And I think they've been preparing for this possibility for decades.
And so, even after so many of the leaders were lost in the opening hours, they still launched huge numbers of counter-strikes against other countries, escalating the conflict horizontally to make it much more difficult for the U.S. to accomplish whatever it is we wanted to accomplish.
Now, and I have to say this: it's not entirely clear exactly what the desired end state is.
There's been for the U.S., there's been a lot of talk about we don't want the Iranians to have nuclear weapons.
True.
We don't want them to be able to launch ballistic missiles.
True.
Then there was talk about regime change, then backed away.
We want to protect the protesters.
You don't hear anything about that anymore.
And then today, the admiral in charge of Central Command, who's doing a hell of a good job, said, you know, we've got to make sure that we deter the Iranians from ever disrupting oil flow through the strait.
That's a great objective.
But that was not even mentioned 19 days ago.
So this is the problem when there's not a clearly defined end state.
This is how you get mission creep.
And that's what really worries me the most.
Right.
Sir Richard Dull, welcome to Uncensored.
I mean, just from a diplomatic point of view, the Trump administration appears to be saying that we had no idea the Iranians might attack the neighboring Gulf states, which I find extremely hard to believe.
I mean, the two things that I would have thought would be entirely predictable if the Americans and Israelis launched such a massive attack on Iran would be that they would try and close down the Strait of Hormuz and they would probably attack American bases along the Gulf states because that would be the leverage they could then get themselves.
Why would anyone be surprised by this?
There was no reason to be surprised.
This kind of a war has been war gamed on many occasions in Washington, and the end result was always conflict over the Straits of Hormuz.
And if the US Navy got in close, losses of large United States naval ships.
I think of a factor that hasn't been brought to play in public discussion yet, and I think it's worth asking for comment from the United States side of this discussion on it, which is when I was involved in the early part of this century and subsequently in track three, track two endeavors,
the assumption about Israeli intentions was that they wouldn't attack Iran unless the sword was at their throats, the expression they used.
And that was meaning if an Iranian nuclear weapon was unstoppable.
And there's no evidence produced yet to justify the claim that that point had been reached by January, February this year.
And personally, I don't believe it.
I do not think an Iranian nuclear weapon was inevitable.
Secondly, there's been a change of military advice in the United States.
On previous occasions, when Netanyahu, at least two to my knowledge, tried to succour the United States into this kind of a war, the chiefs of the defense staff said, well, hold on, there are major consequences separate from an attack on Iran and whether that's going to go well, namely a regional war and the Straits of Hormuz being brought into play.
Now, this time, the Chiefs of Staff have not stood their ground.
They've yielded to their Commander-in-Chief's totally superficial and ignorant analysis of the situation, not being interested to look at it in depth, and saying, because of this concept of American exceptionalism that they can do what they want because they're so powerful, let's go with what Netanyahu wants to do.
Chiefs Yield to Trump00:11:31
Yeah.
Well, Ben Ferguson, I can see you pulling a number of phases there.
It's good to see your face remains Botox-free.
So you're able to do that, unlike the Oscars we witnessed at the weekend.
But in relation to this, you know, I'm really concerned about this, and I'm concerned about where Donald Trump's head is.
I was asked on the BBC at the weekend, does he really have a clue what to do here?
And I replied, honestly, I don't think he does, because I think, unlike Venezuela, which he likened this to very early on, it being other Venezuela, he's decapitated the head of the regime, killed the Ayatollah and many of the top people, and carries on doing that.
But there's a kind of asymmetric war going on that seems to be completely oblivious to that affecting any kind of regime change.
The IRGC are still clearly in control.
There is no sign of any uprising on the street whatsoever, partly because I suspect so many protesters got killed in January, but also because of the constant risk, obviously, of bombs flying through the air.
But none of those early predictions that Trump was making so confidently have manifestly played out.
And now it looks to me like he's really scrambling for a way to get out of this that claims any kind of victory that can make any sense to people.
And the longer it goes on, the more damage it will do to him politically, right when he least needs it, which is in the run-up to the midterm elections.
I mean, you as a Trump fan, as a Republican, but desperate, presumably, not to lose the House and potentially the Senate in November, you must be starting to get twitchy about this, aren't you?
No, I'm not.
And that's because I think there's a couple of misconceptions here.
One, this has been insanely successful, as it was mentioned by your first guest.
What the president has been able to accomplish is incredible.
The number of people that have been taken out in the leadership is incredible.
The minimal loss of life of Americans is incredible.
And there's two different victories here that you can have.
And the president understands this.
The first one is the one I care about the most, and that's national security.
He said he had an objective, and that was to make sure that Iran, who is on record, is saying they wanted a nuclear weapon.
And if they get it, they want to kill the little Satan, which is Israel, and the big Satan, which is the United States of America.
They're the number one state-sponsored terrorism.
They've killed more American soldiers than anybody else in the world in my lifetime.
Those are all facts.
His big victory is making sure they are not a threat.
That is the victory that I care about the most.
Now, there's a second PR victory.
If you have the people show up and rise up and the Ayatollah falls and the regime falls the way that the president and many would love, that is the victory that you get for TV and it gives you a bump.
And that would be amazing for the people.
But to be clear, I don't think the president is nervous the way you're describing it at all.
His objective was to make sure they were not a threat to the U.S. and to the world.
That is the same objective.
I think it's clear for Israel, except instead of the U.S., are saying to Israel directly.
They're still doing that right now.
The second part about the Strait of Hormuz, the idea that Donald Trump didn't think of it, that is one of the biggest narrative lies I've seen a long time by many on the left in the media.
Donald Trump, and this is easy to find.
You can chat GBT it.
You can Google it in 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, talked about the Strait of Hormuz being shut down and the threat that Iran can have to it.
The idea that they were sitting in a room and Marco Rubio and Pete Edsteth weren't talking about this is total nonsense.
They have all talked about it, including Marco Rubio back as early as 2012 when he said it publicly.
So they knew that the strait was going to be an issue.
And this idea that they were somehow just hoodwinked and didn't see it coming, that's just a straight-up lie.
So I think the president's doing what he thought he was going to do from the beginning.
I do not believe, based on the people I've talked to at the White House and the people of the DOD, that they are concerned in any way the way you're describing it.
Like this is going to be a quagmire.
He understands the midterms.
He understands it seems to be quick.
He understands he's on a short deadline here.
And the main deadline for him is: are they a threat, yes or no, the U.S.?
He believes we're getting to the point where they will not be.
That is the clear victory for him.
And then the people, why are they not on the streets right now?
Because there's a hell of a lot of bombs dropping.
Is it easy to rise up right now?
No, because there's a lot of bombs dropping.
The question is: when we pull back and stop, will the people rise up then?
They're not crazy.
They're not insane.
They're not going to go outside when all the bombs are coming in.
Like, that would be insanity.
So people demanding, like, where are they?
Why aren't they in the streets?
They were in the streets weeks ago because there were no bombs dropping then.
So let's see what happens when America finally completes that main phase of the mission.
And then they say, all right, now is your moment.
But no one's going out in the streets right now.
You wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't do it anymore.
No, I agree.
I agree.
I said that was probably the reason.
I mean, just to correct your one thing, Trump literally said yesterday, nobody expected that about the Strait of Vulmoose crisis.
And he's also said, he's also said several days later.
Hold on, wait, wait, wait.
He's also said nobody expected the attacks on the Gulf states.
So he didn't seem to expect any of this coming back from Iran, which I find very, very, very, I don't think the Gulf states thought they were going to get attacked either because it was insane for Iran to attack and then bring and draw them all in.
I think if you talk to most military experts, they thought they would not do that because why would you then want to take fire and have all these states that usually say neutral coming into it?
I think that also shows how desperate the regime is right now.
It's like unload everything we got, see what happens and what we hit.
Show some sort of strength right now.
That's desperation warfare is the way I would describe it.
Okay.
Well, the only person putting more faces than you has been Chenk Uger listening to you.
So let's bring Chenk in.
Welcome back.
Chenk, your response to what Ben Ferguson's saying there's nothing to see here.
It's all going great.
It'll be over soon.
Everyone knew exactly how this was all going to play out.
Nothing to worry about, Gov. Yeah.
So let's start with the stupidity and work our way to lies.
So first off, Donald Trump says, Joe Kent, he's not very smart and he's very weak on security.
Then why did you make him the national counterterrorism director?
I mean, it doesn't get any dumber than that, if you believe him.
Number two, then he says, oh, NATO, a couple of days ago, we all saw it with our own eyes.
Oh, you got to help us.
This is more your war than our war.
This is more your interest than our interests.
Please, please help.
And now he says, oh, we didn't need their help anyway.
Yeah, after they said no.
I mean, it's pathetic and it's obvious and it's silly.
So then you go to what you were just mentioning.
So, oh, my God, no one could have predicted they would attack our bases in the Gulf countries.
I predicted it.
Every rational person predicted it.
Well, what did you think they were going to do?
That they were going to get attacked and they weren't going to counterattack?
I mean, are the people running our government that preposterously stupid?
Of course they're going to attack our bases.
The reason why that talking point even exists is because we spent all of our time, resources, and defensive missiles on protecting Israel, and we left our own bases and our own soldiers vulnerable.
So that's why they put out that incredibly dumb talking point.
And then in terms of the Strait of Hormuz, okay, hold on.
I let you talk for like an hour.
So now, in Strait of Hormuz, they say, well, I mean, nobody could have, you're right.
Trump literally said no one could have seen it coming when everyone could have seen it coming.
But number two, let's say that he's just lying about that and not a moron, right?
Well, what difference does it make?
If you saw it coming, you apparently did not adjust well enough and you got clowned by Iran.
So the Strait of Hormuz is blocked.
So look at all this propaganda, but the propaganda doesn't actually change the facts on the ground.
Is the Strait of Hormuz blocked or not?
It is blocked.
Who effectively blocked it?
Iran did.
Who can't open it up?
Dumbass Donald Trump.
Because this war never made any sense.
We all knew the Strait of Hormuz was going to get blocked.
We all knew the oil prices were going to go high.
And in fact, today, Israel exasperated it by bombing their gas fields, which we told them not to do.
It's going to drive the gas prices through the roof.
Now, Iran is going to counter by attacking the Gulf countries' oil fields.
That's going to double the disaster.
And why won't Israel ever listen to us?
And then that gets us to the lies.
I mean, look at all these.
So Ben Shapiro said about this show that it's a circus or Jerry Springer or whatever.
No, the real circus is cable news and mainstream media.
I mean, look at these preposterous lies.
Lindsey Graham, they were going to get nukes in a couple of weeks.
That is a brazen lie.
That is not anywhere near true.
They just regurgitate things that are lies on Fox News 24-7.
It's an assembly line of lies to scare the boomers watching television.
Oh, they were going to nuke you.
Preposterous.
No one in their right mind believes that.
Then you go to Ben Shapiro, and he says, oh, the idea that politicians would be affected by a lobby.
Of course.
Of course they're affected by lobbies.
Big Pharma controls our government so thoroughly we can't even negotiate drug prices.
We're allowed to say that.
We're allowed to say the big oil controls are so much that we give them billions in subsidies, which makes no sense at all.
But when it comes to the Israeli lobby, that's when all of Washington en masse, especially television, pretends that it somehow magically has no power.
That's absurd.
They were the number one donors in this election cycle.
They gave over $100 million and they've given to 94% of Congress and they've given over $300 million to Donald Trump.
Obviously they control Trump.
Obviously they control Biden.
Obviously they control Congress.
This should not be a taboo topic.
It is patently absurd to say that you're saying that Israel's one lobby.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
I'm almost done.
I'm almost done.
It's patently absurd to say that the Israeli lobby is the one lobby that is not effective, that has no effect at all, even though they're the number one donors to our politicians.
Absurd.
And it's done all to protect.
You've now had way more than Ben Ferguson had, and you claim Ben had.
You claim that Ben had an hour.
So, Ben, hold your fire.
Ben, hold your fire for a moment because I'm going to bring in another guest.
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Briefly to discuss this, Glenn Beck, the founder of Blaze Media, is broadcasting a live report tomorrow called Exposing the Islamist Blueprint for Conquering the West.
Glenn, great to have you back on On Sense.
Fixing American Fundamentals00:07:00
I've been meaning to talk about this war.
What is your overview here?
It seems to me a lot of things can be true at the same time.
The Iranian regime is vile and evil, and no one should shed tears for the Ayatollah being killed or any of the top people running it.
But this massive strike by America in conjunction with Israel is already looking like it's not going to be anywhere near as easy as President Trump hoped it would be.
It's not going to be like Venezuela and these other situations.
I mean, you add the straight-hour moose crisis, you add the attacks by Iran on the Gulf states and so on.
This has got the potential, the potential to become a massive hornet's nest, hasn't it?
So I have to tell you, I mean, you know, I've been listening to the guests, and with all respect to everybody, how the hell do you know what it's going to turn into?
I don't know.
I know that I'm glad I'm not the president of the United States.
I wouldn't have had the guts to do it.
Every president since Ronald Reagan said, we've got to take care of that, got to take care of that.
And they all kicked the can down the road because they know this could be a nightmare.
They know what Iran, the tentacles of Iran, means.
This president just decided, we don't know on what, but he decided, I'm going to go for it.
So he goes for it.
I know it wouldn't have been the decision that I would have made only because I'm a coward.
You know, this president is like, I'm just going to take care of it.
So he does.
How this works out, I don't know.
It could be fabulous.
Could be World War III.
I think that's a much more logical place to be than arguing whether we should be in it or not, because that's not going to change anything.
But what about Gwen?
I mean, I agree with you.
I have no idea how this is going to play out.
And if it was to play out successfully in the longer run for Trump, it could be a triumph.
I mean, I wouldn't rule that out.
However, I don't care if it plays out well for Trump.
I want it to play out well for the Iranian people, but the America first, but the rest of the world, too.
If we playing out well for Trump, I'm assuming that if it played out that way, it would be obviously also good for Trump.
But if it played out, I could see a situation where this plays out very badly for him.
And in relation to you not wanting to do that, to do that because you're a coward, A, you're not a coward.
But secondly, I do think it was an unbelievably big gamble for Donald Trump to take.
I mean, a legacy-defining gamble.
And I'm slightly, I've known him a long time like you.
I'm slightly wrestling with the logic of doing it now with all the complexity and the difficulty involved in going after Iran in this way, given that he's facing the midterms in six months or so, already looking like he may lose the House, may now lose the Senate.
We don't know.
I'm not going to make any prediction.
But if he was to lose both and lose all power over Congress, he becomes the kind of lamest of lame duck presidents for the last two years.
And you're like...
Huge gamble.
And he didn't need to do it now, did he?
I mean, here's the thing about there's going to be a nuclear weapon.
I don't know because I don't know.
I don't believe that.
Right.
I don't know what the intel was.
And I said on day one, don't tell me about weapons of mass destruction.
They're two weeks away from a nuclear weapon.
I've heard that since the 1990s.
I'm tired of that.
Show me the proof and I'll go there.
So I don't know what the intel was, et cetera, et cetera.
I do know what is different this time around, and it doesn't mean it's going to work out, is we talk a lot about the ally of Israel, but the allies all throughout the Middle East are different this time.
They are, I mean, he put that Council of Peace together.
And what I think he's trying to do is he's already done it to Europe.
He's trying to show Europe.
You are toast if you can't defend yourself because we're not going to be able to defend you forever.
And quite honestly, you're living a pipe dream.
Go ahead and try to raise an army with all of the people that you have in your country now that you've let in.
So he's taking care of that and saying, we're not going to be babysitting this.
We're not going to babysit the Middle East.
And I think between the Abraham Accords, the peace council that he put together, he built this coalition that I thought, I think he thinks that we're going to be able to go and strategically hit, not break it like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, but disable it so that council of Middle East can take control of that region and we can get the hell out.
I think that's what he was thinking.
But how does it sit, Glenn?
How does it sit with Donald Trump, the campaigner for the 2024 election, repeatedly saying that unlike Biden, Obama, all the others that came before him, I will not take this country into any more of these expensive, unnecessary wars in the Middle East.
I'm going to focus on America first.
I'm going to focus on the economy.
I'm going to bring things roaring back.
I'm going to sort out inflation.
I'm going to sort out cost of living.
When I say this could be a disaster for him in many ways, one way is simply that if the Straits of Hormoz does not reopen properly for weeks or months, God forbid, the knock-on effect in a few months' time on the American cost of living of the average American, both at the gas pump, food prices and so on, from that straight of Hormuz being strangled for a sustained period of time could be absolutely unprecedented and horrendous.
Let me make it worse for you.
The 2008 collapse happened because we had sustained oil prices over $130 a barrel.
The Western world is not built for $130 a barrel sustained.
If this goes poorly, it will collapse the economy and not just ours, but of the West.
It is a massive, massive gamble.
However, I look at it, again, in just trying, not endorsing, not anything, just trying to understand his mindset.
He told me at one point, I was talking to him about other things, and I said, Are you going to be able to take care of these things in four years?
He said, Glenn, I've got two.
If you're wanting to fix the American economy and fix, you know, get away from the World Economic Forum and everything else, you have to fix the big fundamentals first.
And so that's what he's doing.
He's fixing the fundamentals as he sees them.
If you don't get us out of the Middle East, we're going to go back into the Middle East, you know, the next president, because there'll be another war.
What he's trying to do, and it may work and be miraculous, it may not and be horrible, but that's his gamble.
Let me take care of these things now.
I've got two years and those two years are almost up.
Let me take care of all of this stuff now.
Then the peace dividend that he hopes is going to come from this will then be able to quell everything else.
The Middle East Gamble00:06:49
That's why I say I'm glad I wasn't in the room even near the question because it's the biggest gamble I've ever seen.
But he is also an extraordinarily intelligent, he doesn't get credit for this, an extraordinarily intelligent man.
He is not duped.
I just don't believe that he was duped into this.
He's very clear, and he's been clear about this since 1982 on record saying what he would do.
The thing that worried me about the duping bit, not that he was duped, but that he may have been slightly barreled into this by Netanyahu.
And the reason I say that is purely based on two things.
What Marco Rubio said before they did a screeching new turn, when he basically said on camera, look, the reason we had to attack preemptively was we were told by another country, Israel, clearly, that they were about to attack Iran, and that as a consequence of that, Iran would respond by attacking American interests.
And so we felt we had to act preemptively against that, which was an incredibly convoluted defense, which they then reined back on.
And then, just to finish, then we then had Anthony Blinkton, the former Secretary of State, say, well, Netanyahu tried this with both Biden and Obama.
He said to both of them, I'm about to attack Iran.
Are you with me?
And they both said no.
And then he ended up not attacking Iran.
And that's the only bit of this.
Well, I do wonder, you know, Netanyahu went to the White House, I think, eight times in the months leading up to this.
Did he just wear Trump down and say that is a legitimate?
I think that's a legitimate question that needs to be answered at some point.
I mean, some of the charges that are coming out, they need to be answered.
We need to know these things.
Nobody gets away with answering it.
But on that particular question, my thought is that's not Benjamin Netanyahu's fault then.
You shouldn't be angry at Israel.
You should be angry at Donald Trump.
Correct.
Because, right?
Correct.
People want to say that, and look, I'm a huge fan of Donald Trump.
I think he's doing a fantastic job.
So this is not my opinion.
But what I'm trying to say is you can't have it both ways.
You can't say Donald Trump is doing a great job.
He was duped.
Donald Trump has said, why do we have the trade policies that we have?
Why do we have all these endless wars?
Because our presidents were stupid and they didn't see what was happening and they were duped into it.
So he knows the buck stops with him.
And I have to tell you, I know the man well enough to know, I cannot imagine the person that could dupe him or wear him down.
I really can't.
I think this is a larger strategy.
Whether it turns out to work or not is beyond us.
I pray that it does because honestly, Piers, everybody who is saying we shouldn't be there, let me just take you back to Ronald Reagan.
Beirut, if you stop now, we're trapped.
Okay?
You have to finish it now.
If you stop now, what do you think you will teach the terrorists of the world?
You cannot stop now.
So whether you like it or not, what is your option?
If you want to be safe in a Western world from terror operations like Iran, forget about what happened yesterday or the decision that was made a week ago.
Right now, you've got to finish it.
You have to.
I just want to end just by playing, this is a fascinating thing you did.
You interviewed an AI version of George Washington.
And I just want to play a clip from that because it's very pertinent, I think.
Let's take a look.
Okay.
I said once, to prepare for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.
That's not saber-rattling.
That's different.
It's insurance.
Think of it like this.
A homeowner who never locks their door isn't more peaceful.
They're just more vulnerable.
During the revolution, even some Virginian leaders wanted to keep pursuing negotiations with Britain.
But I came to recognize long before it became popular that some risks had to be met with resolve, not appeasement.
Very, very interesting comments in light of what we're now watching.
This is AI.
This is not ChatGPT.
This is proprietary AI.
This is only based on all of the founders' writings, et cetera, et cetera.
And that was recorded in January.
That was not about the war.
This is going on.
How pressing.
Yeah.
Just finally, Glenn, there's a lot, as you know, the whole conservative movement in America right now is split in a way I've never seen it before.
You've got the Ben Shapiros on one side.
You've got Tucker and Megan Kelly and others on the other.
Everyone's raging away, but they're also having massive ideological disputes over a number of different issues in a way I've never seen.
What do you make of this quickly, and how do you see this playing out?
I unfortunately see it destroying so many people on all sides of this.
I mean, I'm not engaging in, I'm too old for this, especially when we get to micropenis.
I think too old means I'm 13 to engage in that.
But we need to have the conversation about principles and not the people.
I mean, I thought about you coming on today.
I thought, you know, I used to say horrible things about you.
I didn't know you.
And Piers, every time we get together, we might disagree with things, but we can have a conversation.
That's the way we have to move this.
I agree.
And we have to.
And we don't just keep torpedoing each other.
Yeah, I agree.
And we don't descend into really bad ad hominem stuff, which I think is often the refuse of somebody who doesn't really want to have the argument because they know potentially their argument is.
Times are too serious in your country, in my country, in the entire Western world.
This is not playtime.
This is time for adults to sit down and have logical conversations and say, ask any question.
Everything is fair.
But let's have a logical discussion about it.
Yeah.
Glenn Beck, great to have you back on a sensor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Really good.
Appreciate it, Bobby.
Well, let's go back to the panel.
Ben Hodges, really interesting listening to Glenn Beck.
He's certainly mellowed over the years since I first locked horns with him.
But it's really interesting what he was saying there about a number of things, but not least the admission that he doesn't know how this is going to work out.
Military in Bad Spot00:14:55
He prays it's going to be successful.
But I also found that AI clip with the AI George Washington talking, using his actual words, also quite prescient.
You know, Donald Trump's argument will be, as would Netanyahu's be, which is that sometimes you have to do this.
If you want to get rid of a greater evil, you have to do tough things.
And that's what they're now finally doing.
And there's no doubt, if you go back and find quotes of every American president since 1979, you will see all of them to a man saying we've got to deal with the Iran problem.
Trump's like, okay, I'm the one who finally did.
No, we don't know how it's going to play out, but I could certainly, there is a merit to that argument, which is they all talked a good game.
Trump's doing something about it.
Well, look, I was a cadet at West Point in 1979 when the Iranians took over the U.S. Embassy.
So my entire adult professional life, Iran has been the enemy of the United States.
So I am not against taking steps necessary to make sure that Iran is not a threat.
My issue, I guess, is the how.
The United States needs allies.
We cannot defend America from North Carolina or from Texas.
You need allies.
We need forward presence and we need forward friends.
And what our allies have always given us was access, bases, and also intelligence, whether it's in Europe or in the Middle East.
And so I think the president's bashing of allies and demanding that they do something when they were not involved in the original planning may not have been the most effective way to get allies to work with us.
The burden is on us to demonstrate, make the case why it's in everybody's shared interest to do this together, not go in there.
No warning.
Hundreds of thousands of European citizens are trapped along with American citizens in the combat zone with no warning.
And then we've done this and now we turn to them and say, you guys, you've got to help us solve this problem.
I don't think that's the best approach.
Every professional officer I know any of our services knows how important it is to work with.
Well, Ben, you can shake your head if you want.
No, but there was warning.
We gave a timeframe.
Hold on, like, we got to deal with facts here.
There was a timeframe.
The president put the timeframe out there.
We were moving our entire fleet to the Middle East.
There were betting sites that had the number of days that you could bet on until we attacked.
The president said, if a deal is not done, while we are meeting with the Iranian delegation, you've got 10 days.
The idea that there was not a warning, you would have to have been in a coma during the entire Donald Trump presidency since January 1st.
The idea that someone was shocked that we attacked when we attacked is insanity.
There were multiple warnings, not just for the people that were there from Europe or America.
There were also warnings to get out.
There were travel warnings that said you should leave.
There were multiple countries that put those out.
I even think the UK had one out, if I'm not mistaken, where they were saying you don't want to be there and you should make plans to leave from the consulate.
Like, you can't just rewrite and make it up.
Like, I think we should deal with facts here.
And if you go back to the core here, Sonny Glenn Beck said that I think everybody should look at.
Donald Trump is incredibly brave to do this.
You look at Jimmy Carter's quote in 1979, an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.
Ronald Reagan, we will not permit Iran to intimidate the United States or its allies.
George Bush, goodwill begets goodwill, but Iran must end support for terrorism.
Bill Clinton, Iran's support for terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, this is in 1993, threatens the national security of the United States of America.
I'll skip Bush 43.
We know what he said.
Barack Obama, Iran's actions continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security of the United States of America.
Joe Biden, Iran will never get a nuclear weapon on my watch.
He also said they are a serious threat to global security.
All of them agreed.
There's just one that had the Kahones to actually take the political risk instead of kicking the can down the road.
And Jimmy Carter said it.
I agree with him.
Barack Obama said it.
I agree with him.
Even Joe Biden said it.
And I agree with him.
Why did they not act?
Actually, they have what needed to be done.
No, no, I mean, you're kind of making the same point I made.
I mean, Sir Richard Dalton, the interesting thing about this has been the way that the Europeans have reacted.
You know, almost all the major European countries are just not having any of this war, if they can possibly avoid it.
Are they right to do that?
Tony Blair sort of reprimanded Kirstama, albeit in what he thought was a private speech, but he said, you know, when the Americans ask for Britain to help, we've got to say yes.
That is part of being the special relationship, the main ally.
And that when Kirstama wouldn't even allow permission for the Americans to use our bases without any commitment of British forces, that that was a smack in the face.
Do you see it like that?
I mean, is it wise for Britain to literally say, we're not going to do anything for you from the get-go here?
Well, that's not what they said.
Your account of British policy, I'm afraid, is a travesty.
First of all, Britain was extensively involved in the build-up of American air forces to the Middle East.
Secondly, we were not prepared to engage in the offensive phase of the war like our European allies.
And that was for two main reasons.
First, Iran's conventional capabilities, including its missiles, its first use of those conventional capabilities, was thoroughly contained by American forces, Israeli forces, and Allied forces in the region.
There was not going to be first use by Iran of those missiles.
Secondly, and here for a digression to some painful facts, which is that we are here on the nuclear question because President Trump, on Israeli advice, sabotaged the 2015 deal implemented in 2016, which Iran observed to the letter.
It was not a disaster.
I know that's controversial, but they were cheating.
It's disaster.
It was a disaster.
They were not cheating.
That's a lie.
I want to try to listen.
But the imperialists.
Come on, are you going to let that go?
You can respond in a minute, Ben.
They were not cheating, and that is attested by the International Atomic Agency that was the referee on this matter accepted by the United States.
But Mr. Richard, just to jump in, Richard, just to jump in.
You know, you were very indignant at what I suggested.
And yet, isn't the fact when you're talking about facts?
The fact is that when this attack was determined by the Americans and Israelis, Donald Trump called Kirstama and they asked for permission to use our bases and we said no.
We only changed our position on that 36 hours later when actually the Iranians began to attack places that had British citizens.
But I'm sure I'm right.
I mean, our initial position was to say we're not going to have anything to do with this.
We're not even going to let you use our bases to launch your planes from.
Exactly.
We had a lot to do with the initial build-up.
But the important point that I was getting to is that British policy is based on the fact that there should be, when you go to war, a sound legal base and a proper plan.
And everybody knows there was no sound legal base and there was no proper plan.
Now, when British interests became directly engaged through Iran's reckless attacks on the Gulf states, then it was right for Britain to change its position and said, yes, your Lancers can fly bombing raids against missile sites from British bases.
So I believe that the British government has called this right, particularly on the Strait of Hormuz, because simply sending ships where the US Navy is not prepared to go is not the solution.
Well, by the way, even if we wanted to, we can't.
We have seven mine-hunting vessels in the UK fleet, right?
Of which three are currently unoperational.
Three have to stay in British waters to protect British waters.
And the one remaining one was in the Gulf before the war kicked off and has now been brought back.
I'm afraid what this has exposed, Sir Richard, is, and I speak as somebody with many members of my family who've served in the armed forces, including in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What it's exposed is that our armed forces right now, in terms of our ability to be a meaningful contribution to situations like this, are pathetic.
Our army's been reduced to the size of a football stadium.
Our vessels are pretty well unoperational.
You know, the one we are sending is going to take two more weeks to get there.
The whole thing looks completely embarrassing.
And if you just compare our fleet now with the fleet Margaret Thatcher sent to the Falklands in 1982, it is unbelievably tiny by comparison to what we even had in 1982.
So I'm afraid that when Donald Trump says, look, you guys aren't serious and we don't really need you, there's kind of a truth to that, isn't there?
I mean, why would he?
It's symbolic at best.
It's symbolic at best.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know why.
Why would the Americans with half the world's military firepower need the British forces right now, which frankly are an embarrassing pittance compared to what we used to have?
Yes, let's hope that in the period now that we've got rid of a Conservative government and we've got a recovery from the 2008 crash and we've got rid of austerity and we're starting to recover from the disaster of Brexit, we can have economic growth that will allow us to rebuild our armed forces in accordance with our commitments to NATO.
Well, I think there are two, honestly, with all due respect.
I think the United States...
Looking at the British Chancellor, Sir Richard, with all due respect.
Right, but looking at the outpourings from Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK, there are two hopes of that happening anytime soon.
No hope and Bob Hope.
And he's been dead for at least 20 years.
Ben Ferguson.
Look, I think Trump, as always, amid all the bluffs.
Can I go back to Ben?
You know, just to quickly honestly.
You said Ben Ferguson not saying, sorry, bro.
I'll give it a second.
Cheng, I'm going to let you round things off.
So don't worry.
And you can do your equivalent of whatever Ben now says.
But, Ben, the thing with Trump is through the brashness and the rhetoric and so on, a lot of it is very incendiary.
But there's often a sort of salient point nestling in the middle of it.
There was when he called out NATO for not paying their member dues.
And that kind of is about the support that he could get from a country like the UK, even if we were prepared to offer it, which is frankly pretty negligible.
Yeah, it's symbolic at best.
And look, I think this is part of the calculus within this second administration of Trump and the people around him.
You look at what you want and then you look at reality.
And reality is there's a lot of people in the Trump administration that feel like the UK right now is very vulnerable in their own borders.
They have not done enough to protect their own citizens from Islamic extremism in the UK right now.
The military, as you described it, unfortunately, and I say this because I'm rooting for the UK to be able to protect and defend itself, is in a really bad spot.
And so did you need it?
No.
Would it have been great to symbolically have the UK stand up?
Because look, we all know in the U.S., the UK, they have a problem.
Hold on, it's going to call us begging for help.
And America will come to the aid of our ally.
I think a lot of this just comes down to the hardcore liberal government that you have right now in the UK.
Sarmer's not a guy that's going to take chances.
He's certainly not fighting to protect his own people in his own country from Islamic extremism that have taken over the UK.
So why would we expect them to work with us in Iran?
All right, let me bring it up.
I understand your point, but you go back to the core here.
Is he going to stand up with the U.S.?
The answer is no.
And the Trump administration knew that.
And that's why we did the right thing no matter what.
Okay, well, whether it's the right thing or not, time will tell.
Cheng, let me allow you to round things off.
You know, it looks to me like this is increasingly a massive quagmire from which it's very difficult to see how Donald Trump pulls one of his usual extrication operations where he claims victory and moves on and everyone kind of pretends it didn't happen.
It's too big a deal for him to be able to do that, I think.
Yeah.
So I have a solution to this, but first, let me wade through all the lies that have been said.
So if you notice, before the war, people like Ben Ferguson were saying, oh, we're not necessarily going to attack.
Donald Trump's a peace president.
He's not going to attack.
He's not said ever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I never said it.
Go find a video.
Go listen to the baby.
Listen to anyone on my show.
I never said that.
Not one damn time.
Piers, this is why I shout on your program because every time I start talking, some Israel First son of a bitch comes in and starts talking over me.
Hey, you made all your Israeli talk.
Be quiet.
Oh, yeah, yeah, my ass.
Okay, Cheng said.
Cheng, for 15 minutes, you managed to stay relatively calm.
Don't blow it out.
Yeah, okay.
Well, that's what Israel First does.
They just jabber, jabber, jabber.
Ground Troops Debate00:05:34
Anyway, so here we go.
So then Ben said, and all the Israel First clowns said, oh, we're doing this for the Iranian protesters.
And once we start bombing them and murdering them, they're going to love us.
And now he's saying, well, this can't come out.
You've never said that either.
We're bombing us.
We're bombing this.
That's pretty important.
That's what we said.
All right.
All right.
Here we go.
Will you shut the fuck up?
Will you shut up?
If you're putting words into my mouth, Israeli talks.
When you put words into my mouth, the things you're talking about.
I know.
That's why we have to shout on this show because these assholes will make you.
Shut the fuck up.
Just to be clear.
Yeah, you're not going to be able to do that.
Just to be clear.
There are actually less chances of Ben Ferguson shutting the fuck up than there are of the Bob Pope analogy I gave earlier.
So why don't we just assume both of you can be equally garrulous?
Chank, finish your point.
No, no.
I haven't interrupted him once.
Okay, so look, guys, we're ignoring the 800-pound guerrilla in the room.
For example, if somebody was to come in here and they were going to listen to this discussion or debate, but we told them ahead of time, hey, these guys are all clean and honest, then they'd listen to it and try to figure out what's happening.
If we told them ahead of time, someone gave them $100 million to all say the same thing, we'd go, well, then we're a little bit more skeptical, to say the least.
So that is what's happening with our politicians.
Israel has given Congress $100 million.
They've given Donald Trump $337 million.
So this is all a fake conversation.
But these are tiny amounts of American interests.
They spent billions on day one.
You're cutting me off, Pierce.
These are tiny amounts of money you're talking about.
You're making up crap.
Tiny amounts of money.
Piers, are you mental?
Do you know how much costs are you going to do?
Do you know how much costs fake?
$337 million that the Edelsons have given to Donald Trump because he's easily purchasable.
The Edelsons are corrupt and Israelis.
The Israeli Edelsons gave Jonathan Pollard a trip on their private jet back to Israel and celebrated him like a hero because they love people betraying America for Israel.
He doesn't think that's a good thing.
I can prove it.
So tell me if we should put American troops or Israeli troops in.
Okay, why are we putting our guys in?
Ben Ferguson, that traitor, said that it was no big deal that 13 Americans died.
It's a huge deal.
13 Americans died.
Why do you send your goddamn Israeli friends into a war?
They started.
Never said by me.
Never said by me.
You know what?
Piers, I'm never going to let anyone else on this program talk because the minute I start talking, they start interrupting.
Oh, Israel's the greatest.
Israel's the greatest.
They bribed all of our father on this year today.
It is exceedingly clear.
So stop working for Israel, you corrupt sons of bitches.
Work for America.
Here's your solution.
Here's your solution.
And it's super simple.
We get the fuck out of there.
We have zero interests in there.
None, none, none.
So let everyone do what he has.
You put in the ground troops.
You put in the ground troops.
Ben Ferguson, answer this question.
Should we be sending Israeli ground troops or American ground troops?
I think there's no major ground troop movements because the president's made it clear we're not invading the country.
If you listen to what he said, you would already know that not happening.
If we put in ground troops, now that's not a lie, he'll come back to the bottom of the bottom.
I always said we would have put in ground troops in the middle.
You know what?
I'm going to call it.
American or Israeli?
The truth is.
American or Israeli?
Which ground troops?
Trank, calm down.
The truth is the American military has sent several thousand Marines into the area.
They'll take a few more days to get there.
And as we know, when there was a massive build-up before the war started, there must be a high likelihood they may get deployed.
Otherwise, why would you send them?
And it may be that Trump calculates that to get to, say, the enriched uranium, he may have to use some ground forces.
I hope it doesn't come to that.
I think it would be a disaster.
But we've seen that.
So why not Israeli ground forces?
But we shall see.
You know, think about it.
Why not Israeli ground forces?
And Israeli ground forces.
Why is that not even being discussed in Washington?
Well, you just mentioned that.
Why are we so subservient to Israel that we don't even have a national discussion about should it be our troops?
Should it be Israel's troops?
Chank, you know, sometimes.
So you're saying send in Americans.
Mohammed all want to send in America to die because they think Israelis are superior to us and they think the Israeli lives are so important.
62% of Israeli 21% of Americans wanted this war.
We don't want this war.
The only people who want this war are the Israelis.
They should fight their own goddamn war.
We've made sure that we're having Americans killed on behalf of stupid anti-Semitic disgusting Israel.
Chenk, for the sake of your spleen, if nothing else, I'm going to draw an end to this panel debate.
I'm totally fine.
I love America.
Well, not like Time Trips like Ben Wick and Ted Cruz, who served, who literally like a servile dog.
Okay.
Bark for Israel, little doggy.
Okay, I'm going to leave Israel.
Serve America.
No more America's dead.
Thank just for the record.
Ben February.
This is America first panel.
Start a national discussion.
Make every politician answer why we should die instead of the Israelis.
Thank you very much, Cenk, and thank you very much to all of you.
Freedom and Fear00:12:44
I appreciate it.
Well, thank you to my panel for joining today.
He nearly got there.
He was five minutes away from a glorious first ever Chenknyuga debate where he didn't lose his mind.
Unfortunately, we went on another five minutes.
I want to bring two other guests now, Shiva Amini, who's a former Iran women's soccer player who fled the country after being photographed playing without a hijab and the Iranian activist and regular uncensored Matthi Linajab.
Welcome to both of you.
Matthew, welcome back to the show.
What is your view of how this war is going right now?
First of all, thank you so much for having me.
We are in the middle of war, to be honest.
My heart is broken when I don't even know whether my family members, my fellow freedom fighters, are alive because the regime shut down the internet and they live in a total darkness.
But no one talks about it.
No one talks about it.
This is a war crime.
That a regime which the officials going to media tour, coming to your own show, and talking freely, misleading the rest of the world, repeating the narrative of murderous regime, but my people live in a total digital blackout.
And we don't know, as I said, me, Shiva, we have no idea whether our beloved family members are alive or not.
But at the same time, I have to say that people are happy.
I know that very well because I carry the wound of this war on my own body.
Two of my brothers, two of them, two of my beloved brothers were injured during the war between Iran and Iraq.
And I know that this war is ugly, but this war is being imposed on us Iranians by the Islamic Republic.
None of us wanted this war.
But we want now the United States of America to finish the job and do not leave the people of Iran alone with a wounded regime.
We don't want Ali Khamenei to be replaced with another Khamenei.
And believe me, Piers, when I heard the killing of Ali Khamenei, I celebrated alongside millions of Iranians, especially alongside of the mothers whose children were killed by the same government.
And it breaks my heart when I see now Ali Laurijani, one of the top security guys being killed in the West.
Some actually saying that he was the pragmatic leader.
And I want to say, yes, I agree with you.
Ali Laurijani was a pragmatic killer.
He was a pragmatic hardliner.
And people in my country know that very well.
He was the one who ordered the crackdown.
He was Ali La Rujani was the one who actually made tough decisions to attack Arab neighbors.
He was the Speaker of Parliament using hostile language against the US.
He was the one who actually tortured millions of Iranians when he was actually making decisions in the Ministry of Culture.
Top security guy suddenly became a pragmatic and reasonable leader in the eyes of left and liberal in the West.
That breaks my heart.
Yeah, I saw that too.
I saw John Simpson, one of the top BBC editors, you know, he was saying how reasonable that guy was.
I was like, reasonable?
Really?
You think that guy is reasonable?
I think any members of this regime at the heart of the world are...
A reasonable killer.
Yeah.
Masih, before I go to Toshiba for her story, one question that keeps being asked is why has there been no sign of any uprising on the streets, given the military success that the Americans and Israelis appear to be having?
My conclusion has been, and correct me if you think I'm mischaracterizing what is happening, is that it's twofold.
That one, obviously people remember what happened in January when many thousands of protesters were killed in the uprising then.
And secondly, obviously lots of bombs are flying around and the streets are a very dangerous place to be out on right now.
Is that the two-pronged reason we're not seeing any real protests yet?
Let's be very, very clear.
The entire nation, my beloved country, is being traumatized of seeing the dead bodies piled on the top of each other in the streets, Piers.
We never forget that more than 32,000 people have been killed in January and they stormed into hospital, finishing off the wounded one, gang raped the nurses who were helping the wounded ones.
This is the reality.
And how come we expect people to take back to the street?
They're still moaning for their children.
Bombs are falling.
And I think the next wave will be much heavier.
But instead of asking that why people are not in the streets, I believe that we need to ask questions to Europe.
Especially I'm asking Prime Minister Kieris Sommer, who actually decided to send his representative to the embassy in London to celebrate the anniversary of the Islamic Republic.
The same regime massacred innocent and unarmed people.
We need to actually ask these leaders who are safe, they have power, not asking powerless people of Iran who face mass killings, that why you're not in the street.
We must ask those anti-war activists who were saying free Palestine, free Palestine, where are they?
Why they are not in the streets?
Because if we want to free Palestine, we need to free Palestine from Hamas and the greatest sponsor of terrorism, which is Islamic Republic.
I don't think this is a moral question asking unarmed Iranians who actually faced massacre and torture that why you're not in the street while you are cut off from the rest of the world when you don't have internet.
And I really, I really want to ask European leaders, the leaders of G7, where are you?
Why the diplomats are walking freely on your own soil?
Why you don't kick out them?
Why the embassies are still open?
This is a barbaric regime, Piers.
This is a barbaric regime that totally, totally, you know, putting people in darkness, and none of the leaders are talking about them.
We are not the warmongers.
The Islamic Republic is a warmonger.
And I get angry when I see that people saying that, oh, you're welcoming war.
No.
Every single night we go to bed crying.
Shiva, my hero soccer player, she can tell you how now we are worried for the soccer players being forced to go back to Iran.
Well, that's what I wanted to say.
That's why Iranis are not in the streets.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to talk to Shiva about.
Because Shiva, for those who don't know your story, you played on the Iran national women's football team until 2017.
And at that point, you were pictured playing football with male friends in Switzerland.
It was deemed a crime by Iran's regime because you weren't wearing a hijab.
And you were told it would be too dangerous for you to go back home.
You said at the time, I lost everything.
My family, my safety, my home, even my dog.
You still have money in an Iranian bank account you can't access.
After trying to get your family to visit you abroad, your mother was finally granted leave by Iran.
Your father was blocked.
While your mum was visiting, your father died.
You were unable to return to Iran for his funeral.
You still fear for friends and family in Iran.
And you're often too afraid to check your phone for news in the morning.
So that's a pretty harrowing account of what you went through and continue to go through.
And of course, we have this replicated now by these Iranian national women's football players in Australia.
Initially, a number of them, seven of them, wanted to have humanitarian visas and to stay in the country after they did their protest by not singing the anthem.
But now only two remain.
And the word is that the others were bullied and threatened and persuaded to go back because of reprisals against their family.
And you know all too well what those reprisals can look like.
So welcome to Uncensored Shiva.
But what is your view of what has been going on with these Iranian women's football players?
So look, Pierce, it's beyond sad because you saw that picture of those female athletes, Iranian soccer players in Australia, when they actually had a big smile without hijab on.
And you could see freedom and joy in their eyes, but at the same time, they were worried.
And because of the regime, because the regime held hostage their families.
And in that moment, I totally understand them because the regime put you in that situation.
You have only two choices or think about yourself, your future, and be free, or return back to Iran because the regime threaten your family.
So there is, I can explain you like there is a big guilt on your shoulder because you feel guilty.
You know, it's really hard to being in that situation.
I totally understand them.
But at the same time, let me tell you something.
Because I was in contact with them and it's so sad because their manager was actually working with Iranian Federation and at the same time with IRGC.
So she asked asylum in Australia because she wanted actually to get information and her mission was to convince them to get back to Iran.
So after that they decided to get back because for example Zahroga Gambari, their captain of the team, she recently lost her dad and after she asked asylum in Australia, they got hostage her mom.
You know, this is really sad and they are under massive pressure.
So they decided to get back and today you saw that video that they are like with that hijab again, depressed, under pressure.
And those pictures can tell you everything about this regime.
This is the regime strategy, the regime tactic to put and get hostage your family to control you.
So the next step is the regime actually forced them to make a statement in national TV, like a regime TV, to praising them, to praising the regime.
And they cannot speak free.
Even those two players, Autefe and Fatime, they decided to stay in Australia, but they are under pressure as well because their family are in Iran.
And I'm really worried.
And I cannot understand what they are going through.
Well, nobody would know better than you what they're going through.
It's extraordinarily brave and heroic.
Obviously, the potential consequences are enormous for them, for their families.
And it's a desperate situation.
I want to thank you both very much indeed.
Masi for coming back to the show again.
Always good to have you in such an eloquent and powerful and passionate advocate for change back in Iran.
Thank you so much for having me and Shiva.
Thank you.
And Shiva as well.
Thank You Guests00:01:03
I hope next time you will bring the women who were shot in their eyes because none of your audience ever heard of their stories.
Piers, I think.
I will do that.
I will do that.
Better than these old bunch of men you bringing them fighting.
It's not about debating.
It's our live experience.
And you can bring the world to here.
The women with one eye.
They can talk about the real war being imposed on us, Iranians by Islamic people.
I will tell you now, I will do that.
If we can find the right people, we'll get them on.
Okay, you have a deal.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Thank you both very much.
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