Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/23/25: Trump Threatens Iran Regime Change, Iran Floats Hormuz Shutdown, Scott Horton Debunks Nuke Lies

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump threatens Iran regime change, Iran floats Hormuz shutdown, Scott Horton debunks Israel Iran nuke lies.   John Mearsheimer: https://www.mearsheimer.com/ Scott Horton: https://scotthorton.org/   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? We have two absolute giants booked to join us in this show. So I am extremely excited to speak with Scott Horton about the reality of the Iranian nuclear ambitions. He can do some debunking for us there. So very excited to speak with him. And we are also going to be talking to Professor John Mearsheimer about the geostrategic implications of all of this and how we got to this place in the first place. So really super psyched

to talk to them. Before we get into that, we're going to break down all of the latest news with regard to our war and Israel's war with Iran. Trump has now gone from saying, you know, we destroyed all the nuclear sites to now the indications are we aren't. And all the administration officials went on on the Sunday shows and said, there's no regime change here. And then Trump goes ahead and tweets on,

maybe we are gonna do a regime change. So there is a whole lot to get into, a lot of moving parts also as we watch what Iran's potential retaliation could be. We're also gonna spend some time taking a hard look at all of the intense media propaganda. Wild, wild stuff going on, especially on Fox News and CNN. So that is where we are going to focus. We're also going to take a look at the oftentimes utterly pathetic democratic reaction

and what is going on with the quote unquote opposition party. And then later today for premium subscribers, Sokka and I will be doing that AMA live. So if you want to be able to participate in those, make sure you sign up at breakingpoints.com. Thank you so much to everyone who has been supporting the show. One cool thing that we are gonna get to do this week, Sagar, is Griffin and Ryan are going to New York.

We're gonna be doing a live stream Tuesday night that New York City Democratic Primary Mayoral Race with the top two being Andrew Cuomo versus Zoran Mamdani is going down this Tuesday. So we are gonna be covering that live. And new poll actually just came out this morning that has this from Emerson that has Zoran leading after you go through all the rank choice rounds

and whatever, 5248. And now the polymarket betting odds which were wildly in Cuomo's favor yesterday have now completely flipped in favor of Zoran. So it's gonna be a nail-biter. Very interesting to see how this race goes down as sort of a canary in the coal mine of where the Democratic base is now.

That's right, but thank you to our premium subscribers. That's where we're able to forward. We have them both on the ground. They're gonna be there in New York City. Hopefully we'll be able to get some interviews with Zoran Mamdani, as well as possibly Mahmoud Khalil. You know, maybe. Working on that, yeah. It's a bit of a baby thing.

Yeah. Working on these things. More accurately, Ryan is working on it. Ryan is working on it. Because Ryan knows someone who knows someone always. He's the goat. What can we say? He is the greatest to ever do it.

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I heard a lot of people really enjoyed our episode immediately after the strikes that happened on Iran. Just text it to a friend if somebody's asking, hey, what is actually going on here? And hopefully we can help people sort throughout all of this. And so with that, a good transition to what the hell is going on right now. Yeah, well, I have a feeling that Scott Horton and Mearsheimer in the show today,

today might be one of those favorite shows. It's one I'm certainly really excited to, you know, hear from both of those individuals. So let's go ahead and put A1 up on the screen here, guys. You just can't make this shit up. This is Donald Trump on True Social yesterday. It's not politically correct to use the term regime change, but if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again,

why wouldn't there be a regime change? Question, question, question. And then he says, MAGA, make Iran great again, instead of MAGA, you get that? You sure Iran is what it stands for? That's my best guess here. So, Sagar, before I even play all of the

administration students who were sent out to say, oh, there's no regime change here, before Trump completely undercuts them, I mean, how quickly have they moved the goalposts? Yes. Right? It's just extraordinary. Like, first, oh, we're doing diplomacy.

No, we don't want war. We just want diplomacy. Then, oh, this is great that Israel's striking and, oh, we were not involved at all. And then the next day after Trump sees the Fox News coverage and how glowing it is, oh, of course it was all us. We were totally involved. But then we actually, what we really want is diplomatic negotiations.

So, you know, it's great Israel's doing their thing with us, but we really want diplomacy. And then, you know, very quickly, that diplomacy, obviously because some of the lead negotiators were murdered, falls apart and then it's off to the races. So now we've gone from, oh, we're just gonna drop a bomb on Fordow, to well, actually you can't destroy the nuclear program just with bombing. So lookie, lookie, I guess we're just gonna drop a bomb on Fordow to, well, actually, you can't destroy the nuclear program just with bombing.

So lookie, lookie, I guess we're gonna have to do regime change. And your two hosts here called it all along. I would have loved to be wrong, but that's where we are. I wanted to be wrong. I really did, you know? I wanted to see something that really challenged all of my priors about US intervention in the Middle East.

But cynicism is ultimately the only thing that can be rewarded here. We started with, Israel has got it. All America has to do is give them the bombs. And then we're like, no, no, no, no, we just got to do one strike on these three facilities and then it's over. And now as we're going to get into for the rest of the show, actually turns out, yes, the strikes were, quote, successful, possibly knocking out some of those facilities. But oh, the nuclear material itself is not there.

It's gonna go through a lot with Scott, which means what? Oh, maybe we're gonna have to go back and continue this. As of this morning, the IDF has removed all pretences of this being about the nuclear program. They are bombing regime targets, including political prisons or whatever from the Iranians, or apparently Iran had some doomsday clock about when Israel was gonna be destroyed

and they bombed that. Just in case you're all aware of what this is all really about. But with Trump, this really is a massive indictment of a lot of these MAGA influencers because the MAGA line for the last week has been trust President Trump. He's got this.

He's not gonna do regime change. He tweeted it out. he just tweeted it out. Not only did he just tweet it out, he actually humiliated all three of his major national security officials who went on television all day to assure the American public and the Iranians, listen, we are not trying to do regime change here. And look, if you want the evidence,

I'm talking hours beforehand. Vice President JD Vance, National Security Advisor, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sec Def, Pete Hegseth, they all said it over and over again. This is not about regime change, even though Trump literally said it is about regime change. Let's take a listen. Our view has been very clear that we don't want a regime change. We do not want to protract this or build this out any more than it's already been built out.

We want to end their nuclear program and then we want to talk to the Iranians about a long-term settlement here. So this mission was a very precise mission. It had three objectives, three nuclear sites. It was not attack on Iran. It was not an attack on the Iranian people. This wasn't a regime change move. This was designed to degrade and or destroy three nuclear sites related to their nuclear weaponization ambitions.

So is regime change off the table, Mr. Secretary? And to the chairman, you said the battle damage assessment is still ongoing, but do you believe that some nuclear capability in Iran remains? This mission was not and has not been about regime change. It's not about regime change. We're not doing regime change. Don't worry about it. It's not regime. And the reason why is because they're like, maybe we can come to some agreement with the Iranians.

So the Iranians now have, look, whether it's true or not, at this point, the narrative is diplomacy was a ruse. And then it was, listen, we have nothing to do with this. This was only Israel. Now actually we did bomb you, but this is just about the nuclear sites. It's not about anything else. To now Trump is saying, so why would you want to negotiate with Trump? At this point, let's put yourself in the strategic empathy, okay?

You don't have to like Iran. You don't have to like the regime. Put yourself in their shoes. What would you do? What would you do? And we'll continue with these statements from US policymakers. It's just preposterous.

And also, I mean, I know we're gonna get to this, but I wanna preview this. The Trump speech is one of the most, it will live in history as one of the most extraordinary speeches in the US-Israel relationship of all time. I mean, he literally tied the United States of America and Israel together.

He thanked Prime Minister Netanyahu before he thanked the US Air Force service members who dropped the bombs on Iran. He said, God bless Israel before God bless America. This is, the game is up in terms of what this is all about. I mean, this is Israel's war, this is America's war. Donald Trump, our president, has chosen to fuse those two things together, and he is betting

his entire presidency on this. You know, will it work out for him? I mean, he's got better political instincts than me, but at the very least, like, for a lot of other people out there, if you deluded yourself, you know, into thinking that there was some independence or whatever, maybe that was true at one point. I do not believe it to be true at all anymore.

Donald Trump has made his choice to die is absolutely cast. You know, Sagar, I was thinking about this, and I have empathy, especially for people who, you know, were looking at the genocide in Gaza and were like, I can't vote for a ticket that was part of this. And so they wanted to believe that maybe Trump would be different. And one of the analyses that was offered

is Biden is a dyed-in-the-wool Zionist, like he's actually ideologically committed to the project, whereas Trump is purely transactional. But you know what, that should have been a red flag for us because no one's gonna play the transactional game better than the Israel lobby. And that's just a fact. That's a very insightful thing.

And that's actually really, one day we'll do like a full retrospective on how we got here and there's a big, big reason why this is all happening and it's a big part of that. Yeah, because if you actually have some sort of principle, even if your principle is like, I love Israel and I want what's best for Israel, this is not in the long run going to be best for Israel.

I mean, people around the world hate this country now, right? You cannot bomb your way to safety and security. So there is even, if you have any sort of ideological principle you're willing to stick to, there is some sort of limits that you may eventually put. As we've seen with other American presidents By the way who have at the end of the day said you know what it's too far. It's too much We're done here

But with Trump because he's just for sale to the eye is better Then you don't have any sort of a limiting principle, and that's how you end up You know this is John McCain's fondest wish like people are sharing this meme of him his former advisors are saying that I'm not joking His son-in-law Ben Ben Dominic, literally is like, this is his, I mean, look, I take it from his family. All right, like, listen to him. It's absolutely true. Lindsey Graham's, the John McCains, the John Bolton's,

they are getting, the Bill Kristals, they are getting their fondest wish right now through this president who dared, both in 2016 and in 2024, who dared to posture as being anti-war and has now already put us into a regime change war in the Middle East, the exact thing that he would have had us believe he would never do, even as he spoke out of both sides of his mouth. Like he'd say that, and then he'd say, we should bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities.

So, you know, people heard what they wanted to hear ultimately and the record spoke for itself from the first term where he was extremely hawkish and also risked direct hot war with Iran after assassinating Qasem Soleimani. But we're gonna spend some more time tomorrow probably on all of the MAGA influencer cope because you could spend a long time talking about

the way that these people have shifted and the mental gymnastics that are going on here. But let me just give you one example because it fits with what Sagar was saying about the evolution here of their talking points and the evolution here of what the administration has been trying to sell us. So Charlie Kirk originally starts off with like,

we shouldn't be in war with Iran. And then once it's clear that we are, then it's, well, we shouldn't directly bomb Iran. And then once it's, once we do that, then it's, well, we shouldn't do regime change and have boots in the ground. Now, once Trump comes out and says, hey, why not regime change? Let's make Iran great again. Now we get this from Charlie Kirk. Parsing of the different varieties of regime change. A bottom-up revolution rises from the will of the people. A top-down regime change is engineered by elites

and the intel community. One is organic, the other is orchestrated and forced. The line is very thin and we must proceed extremely carefully before you know it. We could be in a situation like Libya. President Trump is talking about an organic uprising. Oh, is he? As he's bombing Iran, he's talking about,

this is all just organic. America cannot get involved in a forceful decapitation effort in Persia. So the number of times he has already shifted the goalposts here to now reparsing the nuances of which type of regime change he thinks Trump ultimately means is just absolutely incredible to see. Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories

and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep-diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book-to-screen casts for years. And now, I get to talk to the people making the magic.

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Quite an honor. You know what's funny is you do this weird math, like if you're a woman dating men, nobody wants to talk to you about your sexuality. They just want to either say like you're a prude or a slut, you know, if you date too much, they criticize you. If you don't date, you must be frigid, whatever. And then the thing that gets added when you're actually more fluid with your sexuality is

the swing goes to you better identify exactly who you are so we can figure out what name to call you. And it's like, okay. And you know, I sort of looked around and was like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've been kissing on camera? You know, maybe not in front of you off camera, but hi, I've always been here. Listen to dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. This speech from Trump, honestly I was shocked because I thought he would be on his game with regard to this messaging. Me too. It's not hard to convince them, sadly, I was shocked because I thought he would be on his game with regard to this messaging It's not hard to convince them. Sadly. It's not hard to convince the American people to bomb someplace that they've never been to okay That's just the sad fact of the matter based on my entire life experience So if you say Iran has a nuke we had to go in there and stop it. We drop the bombs. It's done It's over. God bless America. We preserved our American interests. You know what, I'm sorry to say

there's a large amount of Americans that at least at the jump would be like, you know what, I get it. Okay, we had to tell you there was a dangerous situation. They were gonna bomb Missouri or New York was gonna be next or whatever the hell they were being sold on Fox News primarily and CNN as well.

That's really not what he said. And he also threatened more bellicosity and really made it clear this wasn't really about our interest, it was about Israel's interest. I mean, he really didn't even try to hide that in this speech. The other piece optically is he's got Rubio Hegseth and JD Vance behind him, you know,

which was a way of sort of projecting that he's brought the, you know, JD Vance is supposedly the highest level like non-interventionist in the administration. Hegseth was also supposedly had learned his lesson, blah, blah, blah. Rubio has always been a neocon, but we had also been sold some like, oh, maybe he's changed his ways here too. So by having them there behind him while he's announcing this, it's basically a way of sort

of like publicly humiliating and demonstrating that they've all been brought to heel. In any case, let's go ahead and take a listen to a sampling of what he had to say in that speech. A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime, Fordow, Netanj and Esfahan. Tonight I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran the bully of the Middle East must now make peace.

If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military

for the wonderful job they've done. With all of that being said, this cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill.

Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. So he threatens additional action. And he says something there, Sager. He says Iran's key nuclear facilities were completely and totally obliterated. That is not the case. The administration is no longer even claiming that that is the case. You can put this next satellite images up here on the screen. This is Isfahan.

I mean, you can see certainly damage which has occurred here. But the big question too was Fordow, which is the nuclear facility buried under the mountain that there was a lot of discussion of prior to this bombing. Let's put the next one up on the screen. And you can see the before and the after here. It's actually a little bit difficult to tell exactly where the bombs dropped and what happened. But all of the indications that we're getting from the Israelis and from the Americans at this point is, yes, there was significant damage

But these nuclear facilities are not completely and totally obliterated as he said not to mention now We're getting these pieces of like oh and there but did you know there's other really even more important nuclear facilities And oh by the way, and here's Natanz you can see the before and after there and oh by the way They because there was so much projection of like we're gonna do to do this or maybe we're going to do this or maybe we're not going to do this, the Iranians moved their stockpile of enriched uranium to some secret site that, you know, I don't think we have awareness of. Maybe we have awareness of where it is. But the, you know, ostensible goal here of making it impossible for them, at least in the medium term, to race towards a bomb

has been a failure. Now, reminder, our intelligence community and the IAEA say they were not trying to develop a nuclear weapon, that that wasn't something that they had in mind, that if they did decide to, it would take years for them to develop not only that weapon, but the capability to deliver it. But now we've changed the calculus

where because of the aggressive actions of the Israelis and of now ourselves as well, there is a lot of logic. And I'm sure talk to Meir Scheimer about this later, there's a lot of logic in place for Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon. So that's where we are. The Trump administration is defining terms in complete stupidity because they're like,

the sites have been obliterated. And it's like, OK, well, it's not really about the sites, right? It's about the ability to weaponize a nuclear bomb, right? And that means it's about the uranium stockpile. Let's go and put the next point up there on the screen. And there's also some further stuff that gets into it. It says the Iranian Forto site looks to be severely damaged

but not destroyed. But furthermore, and this is the most important thing, basically U.S. officials now concede they do not know the fate of the Iranian uranium stockpile. And that the current assessment is that almost all of it, and especially according to the Iranians, was moved out of these places before. In fact, there is a arms control expert

who I religiously followed. I have for 10 years on the North Korea nuclear program and more, and his current analysis is that not only does Iran not have access to this uranium stockpile, but there are several other facilities which are more recently built, of which the IAEA has not ever been inspected.

They don't even know where they are, secret facilities and more, where they fully have the capacity to take this 60% uranium and enrich it to 90% if they wish to do so. As you just said, and we'll talk to Mearsheimer about, there has never been more strategic logic to have that happen. And in fact, there's already satellite imagery showing

trucks and other Iranian facilities that were going there before the strikes, maybe two or three days beforehand, and moving it out of there. Now you may ask why the world's most moral, incredible military, Israel, while they're bombing doomsday clocks, doesn't have the capacity apparently to bomb those trucks

or to say, hey, why are these big trucks capable of using nuclear material there? Yeah, you may want to question that, including with the United States. This is the problem, is that now, the stage is set for what? More strikes, because, oh, well, we didn't get it here, so actually we gotta go back,

and we gotta go get this, quote, nuclear material. And look, it's gonna be the same logic. Israel doesn't have the bunker busters, they don't have the capacity. They actually hit Fordo again this morning, similarly trying to take out other things on the side, and again, begs the question, it's like, well, if we destroyed it, then why do they have to go back

and hit it again? Look to the actions, not to the words, and because the actions tell us the entire story, and the story is clear. Also, I would show why the Iran, that made them quote, meagre tweet is so damaging. What did JD say in there? He said, we're not at war with Iran, bullsh, whatever, all right, let's move He said, we're not at war with Iran.

Bullshit, whatever, all right, let's move past that. We're not at war with Iran. We're at war with their nuclear facility, okay. He said, we're not at war with Iran. We're at war with their nuclear program. Then, we want to come to an agreement. Now that agreement would be about this uranium stockpile, but we don't even know where that is.

I'm telling you, this is leaked. US intelligence officials, other officials, IAEA, they're saying, we have no clue. We don't know where it all went. Well, how do you get that? This is basically like the same Iraq playbook. The whole reason why boots on the ground and all that had to happen, not just for regime change,

it was sold to the American public as, we have to go and secure it ourselves. Well, Israel's gonna go and secure it? The great geniuses and the IDF? You know, so yeah, I'm sure that, you know, some 19-year-old reservists who have now spent two years just happy shooting around in Gaza are very proficient at being able to... No, of course it'd be only the US military. We haven't even gotten into Iranian retaliation, but I actually realized we hadn't even played

that JD thing. So just so you guys can take a listen and to show how damaging the Make Iran Great Again regime change declaration was from Donald Trump, it directly undermines his alleged policy and actually makes it clear what the real policy is. Take a listen. Is the United States now at war with Iran? No, Kristen, we're not at war with Iran.

We're at war with Iran's nuclear program. And let me just say, Kristen, we're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program. And let me just say, Kristen, that we're incredibly grateful and proud of the American Air Force pilots who did an incredible job last night. The operation was really extraordinary. I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives.

So this is not gonna be some long drawn out thing. We've got in, we've done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We're gonna now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years. And that is what the president has set out to do. You can see it clear. He said, that's what the president, and also, you know, oh, we had dumb presidents or whatever in the past.

I mean, if that's the level of argumentation that we've been reduced to, it again comes back to trust Trump. You should not trust Trump. By the way, and this is the other thing, the neogons didn't trust Trump. When Steve Wicoff and it looked like, and this is the other thing, the neocons didn't trust Trump. When Steve Wyckoff and it looked like negotiations and all that would happen, what were they doing?

They were like, he's a Qatari traitor, you know, all this, Mark Levin was on TV, he's like, Mr. President, you gotta abandon this policy. They didn't trust him, they were a thorn in his side, and they won, that's why, because it was an overwhelming pressure campaign. Now look, again, Trump's intentions, we'll never truly know what all of this is,

but at a certain point, it really doesn't matter again because of the actions. So where things stand as of some, what, 36 hours post-strike are very clear, is the Fordow facility and others, they appear to be, quote, severely damaged. We do not yet know where the stockpile is. We do have current indications that the Israelis continue their regime change operations.

We have Donald Trump himself, who has declared regime change is a possibility that he'd be very okay with if not wanting to affect. And we have all of the pieces in place to continue more airstrikes on Iran, if not a call for some sort of US intervention. And all of this is before the Iranians have even responded to the United States, which of course is an open possibility, a dangerous one, and looks all the more likely right now. Yeah, that's exactly right. Just like great shoes, great books take you places.

Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reesa's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book

talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this. This podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler. Sophia Bush is here.

Tell me how that feels to be considered a hot lesbian. Quite an honor. You know what's funny is you do this weird math. Like if you're a woman dating men, nobody wants to talk to you about your sexuality. They just want to either say like you're a prude or a slut. If you date too much, they criticize you. If you don't date, you must be frigid, whatever. And then the thing that gets added when you're actually more fluid with your sexuality is

the swing goes to, you better identify exactly who you are so we can figure out what name to call you. And it's like, okay. And you know, I sort of looked around and was like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've been kissing on camera? You know, maybe not in front of you off camera, but hi, I've always been here. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

So let's move to the indications there. We just got word this morning from Qatar. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen, guys. This is from the State Department. They say, out of an abundance of caution, we recommend American citizens shelter in place until further notice. So some dire indications there coming out of the State Department. Let's go and put this next piece up on the screen there.

This is A7 guys coming out of the Times of Israel. So they're claiming Netanyahu has some interesting intel on the whereabouts of Iran's 60% enriched uranium. What do you make of this piece, Sagar? You buy this? No, of course I don't buy it. Because look, I mean, they can claim whatever they would like It's clear that their military didn't actually be up to the job

And they knew it from the very beginning they knew from day one They would never actually be able to destroy the nuclear program and that's part of the reason why again look at the actions guys This is all out in the open They're openly striking regime targets and oil and gas facilities and by the way have been from day one Yes, like that's why all the strikes in Tehran those are not nuclear facilities regime targets and oil and gas facilities. And by the way, have been from day one. Yes, exactly. That's why all the strikes in Tehran, those are not nuclear facilities.

So this has been, and it's so important to emphasize the points Saqr is making because they want to sell you, this is about Iran's nuclear program. And that's the way they'll keep dragging, oh, we actually didn't completely obliterate Porto. Oh, there's this new site, oh, they moved in rich uranium, now we gotta do more, now we gotta do more, we got to do more. And you just keep inching forward. And I mean, Trump at this point is just like completely said, all right, well,

we need regime change, I guess. And that's the truth of the matter is even if you keep it at, we have to make sure that they can't get a nuclear weapon. You can't ensure that there. There's literally no way to actually guarantee that the best path they were on was the diplomatic one back with the JCPOA and the negotiations to actually guarantee that. The best path they were on was the diplomatic one back with the JCPOA and the negotiations that were going on. The beginning of this Trump administration where it's like, okay, we're gonna give you sanctions relief and you're gonna agree

not to pursue a weapon and we're gonna have an inspection regime that can give us some sort of comfort that that's not happening. But what the hawks are gonna say is, well, you really can't guarantee it until we have some sort of puppet regime in there that we can just control. So that's the way that this logic ultimately works.

Let's put AA please up on the screen. This is arguably the most important indication that's yet come out of Iran. We'll contextualize for you. The Iranian parliament has reportedly backed closing the straits of our moves, obviously which could spike the price of oil where, what is it, some 30, 40% of the world's oil moves through, very, very important for the Chinese economy. Now again, just to explain here, what the Iranian parliament did,

and there are several different parts of the government, it's not exactly a parliamentary democracy, okay? There are many different bodies, they all report up to the Ayatollah. Effectively, what they said is they have approved the closing of the Straits of Hormuz if the Ayatollah and the National Security Council of Iran decide to do so. So they're not saying that they're gonna do it. It's effectively like a declaration of war from Congress saying, hey, if you want to declare war, you can,

and then it's up to the discretionary authority of the executive. So in a way they actually follow the process more than our own president did whenever he launched a war. Kind of ironic, honestly. Yeah. But what it does tell you is that it is the nightmare scenario. It's one that US officials have said would be suicidal. It almost certainly would. It would lead to the massive, basically massive involvement of the United States Navy.

It would obviously shock the world's oil prices. It would be a devastating blow to the Chinese economy. It would just be absolute mass chaos. It's something that they have the ability to do, to mine if they want to and to close, along with the Houthis as well, to try and put more pressure on U.S. and other shipping assets that are all throughout the region. But the point really stands is that they have a lot of optionality right now. They're looking all across the world.

By the way, another reason why that Qatar thing is so significant is it's not about US citizens, it's Qatar, it's about the fact we have a massive air base in Qatar. Now reportedly, a lot of the US assets were taken out of that at the beginning, but this was always a big nightmare, is that that air base, very strategic, it was a key staging point for US troops for logistics-wise during the war in Iraq.

There's thousands of American service members that are not just there, but also in the region. Bahrain, you have the Fifth Fleet, and you have us, you have two carrier strike groups that are there as well. Put that together, I mean, with Iraq and with Syria, there are so many different vectors through which they could attack the United States,

US assets, American citizens, if they wanted to. That is the danger. Now, are they gonna decide to do that? The Americans have basically said that's gonna be suicidal. Again, I ask for strategic empathy. If somebody said that diplomacy with you was a ruse, and if somebody said, well, we strike your facilities,

but it's not, that's it, no more, and then the president, the chief decider, comes out and says, actually, it's about regime change, what would you do? And also, we're not dealing with the most rational actors here, because the Ayatollah is 86 years old. I've been reading a lot about the Ayatollah,

and this is a guy who basically staked his entire security doctrine on nuclear ambitions as a deterrent. That has collapsed literally around him. The country is more precarious today than at any point since 1979. And in his vision, at any point since the 50s, during the restoration of the Shah.

So he doesn't have anything to live for anymore, except for his own legacy. It's not that hard, even at a rational level, take religion and all this other stuff out of it to say, we're gonna fight to the death. He's the decider, he's the person who makes these decisions. And there are all kinds of people inside the Iranian regime who want to fight at this point, feel humiliated.

There has been a massive rally around the flag in Tehran and all across the country. And in fact, if there is a regime change, he's said and already designated his successor, but let's say the mullahs are thrown out of power. The most likely, from what I can tell and have read, it would not be democratic. It would be some secular nationalist, IRGC type figure

who would sprint towards a bomb to say we will never let this happen to our country again. This is a bad scenario. And of course they have access to chemical, biological weapons, they've got the ballistic missiles program, Israel claims to have destroyed half of it. We'll see. Doesn't look like that from Tel Aviv.

I can tell you that right now. But that's, you know, this is why, you know, the triumphalists are like, it's just about the strike. They're like, why are you guys bedwetting so much? I mean, how have you not learned about the 40th order consequences at this point? And it's not about the one, look, the US strikes on Libya were successful, right?

It took seven months for that country to go to shit. Gaddafi was killed in October. We started seven months before that. And actually, the country didn't really collapse until 2014. The Iraqi Civil War didn't start really hot until 2005, 2006. Afghanistan, the Taliban didn't rise for two to three years. Everybody had their mission accomplished moment. And it happens every time.

The West wins the opening because it's about sheer military strength and then the strategic and the political question, which we never think about from the beginning, collapses. And then what happens? We have to get more involved. Yeah, I mean, Iranians are fighting an existential battle for their country.

Like that is a difficult, like we couldn't even defeat the Houthis. Like let's be real. From the air. We can do it on the ground if we want to. Yeah, you want that? Yeah, exactly. I don't want that. Yeah, so in any case, let's put this, this is unbelievable, this next piece, put this

up on the screen from CNBC. So the US is apparently calling on China to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting global oil flows. So we're like, you know, have created this likely consequence or potential consequence and now we're begging the Chinese to rescue us from the potential implications of our own actions. You know, this is something I want to talk more to Mearsheimer about because Chinese get more, a much larger percentage of their oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz than

ours. However, there's some other possible ways to ship oil other than through the Strait of Hormuz from Iran. So I'm just like, I'm just very skeptical at this point. You know, we heard all these economic projections about how the sanctions on Russia would just be utterly devastating to their economy and they couldn't possibly survive

and that turned out not to be the case. So at this point, I'm just, all of the like, economic fallout predictions of how this will be completely devastating to Chinese, the Chinese economy. I just want to learn more and I want to see more before I take people at their word that that would actually be the case. We also had the foreign minister of Iran making comments saying that the U.S. has blown through every red line imaginable, which I think is pretty reasonable thing, frankly, to say at this point.

Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say in the wake of these strikes. The United States showed that they have no respect to United Nation Charter. They have no respect to international law. They have no respect to international law. They have no respect to any international law regarding, you know, managing the board and facing challenges of the board.

There is no red line that they have not crossed. And the last one, and the most dangerous one, was happened only last night, when they crossed a very big red line by attacking nuclear facilities. I don't know how much room is left for diplomacy. We are now calculating the damages and as I said the damages are not only for our nuclear facilities, the damages are for the United Nations Charter. It was not only Iran's facilities which was bombed, it was also the United Nations Charter. It was not only Iran's facilities which was bombed, it was also the United Nations Charter.

It was also non-proliferation regime and NPT which was bombed last year by Americans. And it was the rule of law and international law, which was bombed. That part about how we, you know, figuratively bombed the nonproliferation treaty is actually really accurate because many countries, not just Iran, many countries are going to look at our actions and be like, oh, well, they're not messing with North Korea. But I see what happened to Libya. I see what happened to Iran. So what kind of logic does that create around the world? There's just no doubt about that at this point.

Put A13 up on the screen just in terms of, you know, potential retaliation that we're watching. This was an Iranian state TV broadcaster who was showing on the map all the location of US bases throughout the region, of which there are many, and what saw there some 50,000 US troops stationed throughout the region, all of them at risk all of Them in danger now

They don't have an iron dome or a David sling or an arrow system to protect them on those spaces in the nearby region and Lastly put a 14 up on the screen We're gonna talk more about this all this sleeper cell talk in the media block But the US Department of State issued an urgent warning to all American citizens to exercise caution due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran and they really are pushing this idea here domestically Sagar that there's these you know Iranian sleeper cells that may leap into action at any moment and I would just be highly skeptical highly skeptical of those claims,

because, I mean, this is the way that they want to bring the war home and create some sort of a justification so people feel like, oh, well, you know, maybe we don't want war, but we gotta act. There's these sleeper cells here, and I'm terrified that we're gonna be next. So that's kind of where we are, is we're waiting to see Balazs and Aran's court

of what they're gonna do next. Yeah, if you're old enough, you can remember the terror levels. Oh my god. Already, we're at security threat level red. So yeah, I feel like I'm 12 years old. All over. I feel so old. Watching this all unfold again, I feel so old.

Yeah, that's right. All right, let's get to Scott Horton. He's standing by. Just like great shoes, great books take you places, through unforgettable love stories, and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts.

Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character or cried at the last chapter or passed a book to a friend saying you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Sophia Bush is here. Tell me how that feels to be a hot, considered a hot lesbian. Quite an honor. You know what's funny is you do this weird math. Like if you're a woman dating men, nobody wants to talk to you about your sexuality. They just want to either say like you're a prude or a slut, you know, if you date too

much, they criticize you. If you don't date, you must be frigid, whatever. And then the thing that gets added when you're actually more fluid with your sexuality is the swing goes to, you better identify exactly who you are so we can figure out what name to call you. And it's like, okay.

And you know, I sort of looked around and was like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've been kissing on camera? You know, maybe not in front around and was like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've been kissing on camera? You know, maybe not in front of you off camera, but hi, I've always been here. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? And they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley, comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Inc.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th.

Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We're very excited now to be joined by Scott Horton. He is the director of the Libertarian Institute, author of Provoked, a fantastic book, and a great friend of the show. Scott, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it, man. Thank you both very much for having me. Absolutely.

I mean, such an expert here is particularly what we wanted to talk about with you, Scott, is uranium enrichment, the claims of the United States, where things stand now, in particular where things may go with these US strikes on Iran. Let's start here with JD Vance asked specifically about the Iranian stockpile of uranium, effectively admitting that the stockpile itself was not hit and what that means for the future. We're going to play it. We're going to get your reaction. Let's take a listen. We feel very confident that the Fordo nuclear site was substantially set back, and that was our goal.

The UN's atomic energy watchdog said that Iran had 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium. Do we know what has become of that? Was it destroyed in this attack? Do we know? That's a big stockpile. Well, we're gonna work in the coming weeks. Yeah, John, we're gonna work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel,

and that's one of the things that we're gonna have conversations with the Iranians about. But what we know, John, is they no longer have the capacity to turn that stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons grade uranium and that was really the goal here. Uranium is not that difficult to come by John, but enriching uranium up to the point of a nuclear weapon, that is what the president put a stop to last night. Scott, can you just react to that because now the claim is that the stockpile itself was not destroyed possibly

for further pretext of US involvement, but maybe even take the audience back a bit further as to what all of this enriched uranium stuff even means and why it really was a pretext and not a real reason for the US to strike them right now. Yeah, well, that's absolutely right. So to start with the latest, they are more likely to break out toward a nuclear weapon now, which is what those of us on the antiwar side have been saying for 20 years here. What Iran has is a latent nuclear deterrent. They mastered the fuel cycle back in 2005. That is, they proved that they knew how to enrich uranium

to whatever percent. Now, they need 3.6% for their electricity program and they need a little bit of 20% for their medical isotope reactors. But otherwise the war party is as a kernel of truth when they say, and you know how they do it, they always make it a rhetorical question. Well, what do they need with all that 60% enriched uranium? Well, there's a real answer to that

other than they're on their way to making nuclear weapons. Of course, they could have enriched up to 90 plus percent all uranium. Well, there's a real answer to that other than they're on their way to making nuclear weapons. Of course, they could have enriched up to 90 plus percent all along. They enriched up to 60 percent as a bargaining chip to negotiate a way in order to try to get the sanctions lifted and try to get the United States back in the deal. It's the same thing they did in the Obama years. And of course, it was in response to Israeli assassinations of their nuclear scientists and attacks on their personnel in Syria and things that caused them to go ahead after Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018

and go ahead and start enriching up to 20 again, and then eventually up to 60%. Now, you'll hear every hawk on every show say, oh my God, 60% uranium. And then what they're betting on is that the audience doesn't know anything about it. And what you're telling them is nuclear, scary, be afraid. And we stopped the thing.

Trump was asked, but Tulsi Gabbard says they weren't breaking out toward a nuclear weapon. And he said, well, I don't care what she said. They were getting close to one or something. He said, Kuki Tucker Carlson needs to understand that Iran can't have a bomb. So what's implied there heavily, of course, is that Iran was making a bomb

and that we stopped them from making a bomb. But that's just not true at all. And I'm not trying to convince anyone to be naive. As I said, it already was a latent nuclear weapons deterrent, in a sense. But what it also is, is their civilian energy program. And any economist could explain why it might make sense for Iran to burn their domestic supply of uranium and sell their oil on the world market, if they can. And so this is the main part of it.

On the other hand, it also is just like Brazil and Germany and Japan, where they've proven they've mastered the fuel cycle and they could make atomic bombs if pushed to it. So it's sort of like saying, I have a revolver in one pocket and some bullets in the other, lets you and me not get into a fist fight

and then that way this thing won't escalate. That's essentially been their stance our whole 21st century long here. To go back to W. Bush, he put them in the axis of evil. Just think about what a cynical lie this is, that the Ayatollah, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Kim Jong-il are all in on it together working against you, right?

As absolute total hoax. Well, Saddam said, my books are wide open. Here's my 12,000 page dossier. I'm not doing anything. And they just buffaloed right in there based on a bunch of lies. And got it done anyway. The neoconservatives got it done.

In North Korea, Bush and Bolton bullied them out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. They went ahead and made nuclear weapons. Nobody's messed with them since. But what the Supreme Leader did was the Supreme Leader in Iran, the Ayatollah, said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to open our books wide open.

We're going to stay in the NPT. We have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, and they can verify the non-diversion of any nuclear material from our civilian program to any military purpose, which is exactly what they've done. And the only reason Obama even needed to do the deal in 2015 was because essentially the world led by Israel or the West led by Israel were essentially just pretending the NPT didn't exist,

pretending that Iran didn't already have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, and the Israelis were threatening an aggressive war then. And Obama felt it was necessary, and I'm not taking Obama's side. For people who don't know me, I hate the Democrats more than anyone hates the Democrats. But I'm just telling you,

this is the true history of the world here, is Obama made a deal where they would severely restrict their program, they would expand the inspections regime, and in exchange, we would lift sanctions and give them some of their own money back. That pallet of cash was money that Jimmy Carter had stolen from them during the revolution in 1979.

John Kerry's just given some of that back. In exchange, they poured concrete into their ARAK, that's A-R-A-K, ARAK heavy water reactor. They severely restricted the number of centrifuges spinning at Natanz by, I think, two-thirds. They converted the Fordo facility to research only rather than uranium and rich uranium production. And they expanded the inspections regime where America and our allies on the UN Security Council, we have the majority, it's America, Britain and France versus Russia and China. And unlike a normal Security Council resolution, Russia and China couldn't veto it. It was majority rules under this deal. If we want to inspect even non-nuclear sites,

we can as long as we have some plausible reason to do so and submit the request in a reasonable amount of time and so forth. There's no way that they can have a secret nuclear weapons program and then smuggle it out the back door before inspectors arrive or whatever, this kind of thing. So arrive or whatever, this kind of thing. So the deal of 2015 was engineered so that Iran, if they withdrew from the NPT, and if they kick the inspectors out of the country and beat their chest and said, now we're making nukes, it would take them a year to make one. And by the way, as long as you're letting me ramble on here, let me explain real quick too that you cannot miniaturize a uranium bomb.

Yes. Uranium bombs are virtually always a gun type nuke, like Fat Man that they dropped on Hiroshima, which is essentially a giant shotgun inside that bomb, firing a highly enriched, weapons-grade enriched uranium slug into a target of the same that causes a super critical reaction. They didn't even test that bomb.

It's 1940s technology, simple stuff. They didn't test that. The Trinity test was of the Nagasaki bomb, which was a plutonium implosion bomb. That's the kind of bomb that can be miniaturized and married to a missile. However, the Iranians have no plutonium route to the bomb because even though they still do have

one heavy water reactor at Boucher and it produces plutonium waste, they do not have the facility required to reprocess that waste, get the impurities out to make it possible to use for weapons fuel. And under the JCPOA, which they're still in this part of it with the Russians, is that every two or three years or so, they shut down the reactor and the Russians will come and get all the plutonium waste and take it away. So their plutonium route to the bomb did not exist at all. And their uranium route to the bomb was delayed for at least one year.

And then as I say, at the end of that year, they would have had enough to make one bomb with, but then no way to deliver it other than slap it on the back of a flatbed truck or something like that. So it still would essentially be, you know, the most base, the most minimum of nuclear deterrent. And it's, you know, and I'll wrap up with this is that it's clear from all of the reporting here, nothing changed.

The only one in opposition to that is Israeli intelligence claims that something changed, but American intelligence has not verified that at all. The only thing that changed was Trump made up a 60 day deadline and then the Iranians went past it. And he was on this absolute red line deal killer that they can have no enrichment in the country at all whatsoever.

Back to what JD Vance was saying there, essentially equating them having the capability to enrich with progress toward a nuclear weapon and claiming that that was what we stopped. But it's just, it's no more sincere than Bill Clinton in Kosovo or George Bush in Iraq or Afghanistan or Barack Obama in Libya or Syria or any of the rest of the, or Yemen, any of these things.

It's always just hoax after hoax with these people and their wars. Well, let's talk a little bit more about that because they've got a little bit of a propaganda issue given the fact that Tulsi Gabbard was at the end of March came out saying very clearly the American intelligence community does not believe that Iran is pursuing a weapon. And so now we're supposed to believe just some months later that this is suddenly completely changed and so much so that we need to get involved in what Trump is now admitting may be a regime change operation.

Of course, we've all seen from the beginning that the nukes were pretexted. This was, in fact, a regime change operation. Let me get your reaction to Secretary of State Marco Rubio being pressed on this question of, OK, well, are they pursuing a nuclear bomb, since that is your pretext? Let's go ahead and take a listen to how he responds. On a phrase you just word, weaponization ambitions. Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the supreme leader had ordered weaponization? That's irrelevant. I think that question being asked on the media all that's any relevant question. That have everything they need to build a weapon.

That is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessments. You know that. No, it's not. Yes, it was. No, it's not. The political decision had not been made. I know that better than you know that, and I know that that's not the case. But I'm asking you whether the order was given.

And the people who say that, it doesn't matter if the order was given. They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury things in a mountain 300 feet under the ground? Why would you bury six? Why do they feet under the ground? Why would you bury six? Why do they have 60% enriched uranium? You don't need 60% enriched uranium. The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60% are countries that have nuclear weapons because it can quickly make it 90. They have all the elements. Why do they have a space program? Is Iran going to go to the moon? No, they're trying to build an ICBM so they can

one day put a warhead on it. No, but that's a question of intent. And you know in the intelligence assessment that it was that Iran wanted to be a threshold state. How do you know what the intelligence assessment says? I'm talking about the public March assessment. And that's why I was asking you if you know something more from March. But that's also an inaccurate representation of it. That's an inaccurate representation of it. That's not how intelligence is read. That's not how intelligence is used. Here's what the whole world knows.

Forget about intelligence. What the IAEA knows, they are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program. Scott, your reaction to that propaganda effort. I mean, anyone ought to be able to just see right through that. The only countries that have 60% uranium are countries that have nuclear bombs. Really? Is he saying you can make a bomb out of 60% uranium? Is he saying that any nuclear weapons

stay in the world has their arsenal made out of uranium bombs rather than plutonium implosion bombs? And he's simply bluffing. And Marco Rubio, I'm glad he hired Marco, little Marco for the job actually, because you can see right through the guy, he's just as transparent as could be. He's got Miriam Adelson's hand right up his rear end moving his lips for him. He's not really a human man, right?

He's like a corporate mascot like Tony the Tiger, or Ronald McDonald or something. He's sitting there. His job is to lie to you so that you'll be confused and let him commit horrific sins on behalf of a foreign power. Yeah, but then one of the things that really, Scott there, is about what you said

about the capability, is confusing capability with intention. And that intention, again, according to US intelligence, did not exist I can't back you up as well You know I reported over the weekend that my spoke with senior US intelligence official people with the highest level Who saw it and they said no there has been no change whatsoever in the ayatollah or the Iranian higher commands Decision making on whether to build a nuclear bomb or not

And so I really want to just end on that note with you here is whether to build a nuclear bomb or not. And so I really wanna just end on that note with you here, is specifically about how the logic of nuclearization has never made more sense than today. Because what has happened is that Israel, with impunity, is allowed to just come in and bomb the shit out of your entire regime, basically target your oil and gas facilities.

The United States has the ability to come in and to blow up all your nuclear enrichment. It has never made more sense for them to have a nuclear deterrent than right now, instead of trying to pursue some sort of deal when the president himself also says, actually, regime change, that's totally cool and fine with me.

Why would they want to do anything else? I mean, look, this very well could be the absolute death of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The nuclear weapons states have never lived up to their promise to disarm that they signed in there, of course, although America and Russia did come way down from tens of thousands of nukes each, but still. And then here you have a nuclear weapons state Israel

that's not a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, acting in concert with the United States, the World empire, that's a total violation of it, attacking a non-nuclear weapon state signatory to the NPT over their civilian program. That, again, you hear Banco Rubio bending over backwards, trying to figure out how to get you to conflate it with something scary that, again, was nothing but a latent program at the time. We had the perfect basis for a standoff. I'm not saying I endorse this. I'm a total non-interventionist here. But they were saying, if you attack us, or they were heavily implying, if you attack

us, we might just make a nuke. And our side was saying, don't make a nuke or we'll attack you. Okay, well, great. They could have just left it at that. For Trump to have bowed down essentially to pressure, there were, you might remember some wiggle words a couple, a few weeks ago, about well, maybe we could allow some enrichment

on some limited basis under some sort of compromise. Maybe even do a consortium with the Saudis and enrich together some kind of thing. They were trying to be flexible for a minute there, and then the lobby came down hard and said no enrichment at all, which of course the Ayatollah was never going to give into. So they were just setting us up for this war.

But I'll encourage your audience to pay very close attention to people like Marco Rubio, and for that matter, the rest of the pundits and whatever out echoing the war party talking points. And you will notice this distinct lack of clarity when it comes down to exactly what was going on here. There's a lot of implication that's essentially relying on people's ignorance.

If they say nuclear is exactly, it was the focus groups that learned this in 1990. People didn't really want to go liberate the weight and reinstall His Highness, the King Al-Jabr to the throne there until they did. They got people at the mall and they sat them down in focus groups and as soon as they said nuclear, people said, okay, I guess we gotta go. And then they use that same lesson for rock war two. And of course they're doing the same thing here

because they know that most people didn't study hard sciences in college and stuff. We don't know about uranium this and that. And so they can try to just make it sound scary and say, listen, we can't wait. Remember this was the line, Polly's rice, George Bush and Colin Powell, all three said, we can't wait for the proof

to come in the form of a mushroom cloud. So you and your mama better just stay scared and let us do what we want. Yeah, no, that is all so absolutely correct. And I mean, in a way, I appreciate Trump's saying that, and I'm like, and maybe it is regime change, so we can all drop the pretense here.

Because I've never seen polling that is so wildly apart, depending on how you frame the question, because you're absolutely right. If you say to people like, Iran's pursuing a nuclear weapon, should we go in surgical strike their nuclear facilities to prevent them? Guess what? You get a lot of people who say yeah sure because that also feels costless and

limited and like oh, there's this big scary threat and we can just take it out easily. Off gun too. Right if you ask people, I know one of the questions asked, should we get involved in the war between Iran and Israel and people like hell no. Why would we do that? And I've yet to even see the question asked, should we get involved in a regime change war with Iran, which is of course what we are in at this point. But I have no doubt the polling on that

would be absolutely abysmal, which is why to your point, Scott, it matters so much how you frame these questions and how you clarify for the American people what is actually happening here and what the president has actually put us into, which is a regime change war. It is already underway.

It is happening right now. Agree. And look, even regardless, we don't know the secret counsels of these people, but just on the most basic level, this is what Harry Brown said is, government doesn't work. They fail upwards. The worse things are, the better it is for them. And so everything,

by their logic, is always escalation. Look, all we're going to do is we're going to take out a few nuclear sites. What? You're saying now they're going to break out toward a nuclear weapon? Oh, boy, I guess we need to get the Americans in there because only they can get the Forto site. Now we got America in there. And then, no, they're saying, I saw a report today, the Iranians are claiming they have a new secret base that they built under a bigger, deeper tunnel under a bigger mountain.

Put that up on the screen while you're talking. Yeah, put it up there. Yeah, we have that report. Like, oh, there's another one. It's Eve, there it is. I guess we're gonna have to send in the 82nd Airborne to go in there and destroy it by hand then this time. Are we gonna have to use nuclear weapons?

Probably not, but they're talking about that might be what it would take. Or you know what, I guess we're just gonna have to go ahead and kill the Supreme Leader. I saw Benjamin Netanyahu said that would solve everything if we just killed the Ayatollah comedy. And can't you picture George W. Bush, I mean Donald Trump, same difference,

buying into that one and going along with that. And then what? Now you gotta kill every last Shiite cleric in the country to prevent one from claiming to be the Supreme Leader? Are you gonna prop up the Azeris or the Baluchi Bin Ladenites in order to keep the Shiites out? Or who's gonna take charge?

They're talking about parachuting in the Shah's son? Oh my God. How in the world could anyone? His Royal Highness according to Fox News. You know, it's funny. Oh, is that what they're even calling him? Yes, they called him His Royal Highness. You know what's also funny?

Oh, that's so great. It's not even the correct title. It's His Imperial Highness, just for those of us who care. The Shah of Shah, I'm just saying. If we wanna be correct, let's be correct. We should also be calling him my lord, my Darth Vader. My liege, yes.

Yeah, I mean, I can't get over it. Scott, I said to you, I'm sorry that your expertise still continues to be so incredibly relevant, but we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and help explain these things. No one does it better than you do. Thank you so much, both of you. Great to be with you. [♪ music playing, fades out.

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[♪ music playing, fades out. [♪ music playing, fades out. [♪ music playing, fades out. [♪ music playing, fades out. [♪ music playing, fade out. [♪ music playing, fade out. [♪ music stories, and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club,

the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcast, where we dive into the stories that shape us, on the page and off. Each week, I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Sophia Bush is here. Tell me how that feels to be a hot, considered a hot lesbian. Quite an honor. You know what's funny? When you're actually more fluid with your sexuality,

the swing goes from nobody gives a shit who you're sleeping with to you better identify exactly who you are so we can figure out what name to call you. And it's like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've been kissing on camera? Hi, I've always been here. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Adventure should never come with a pause button. Remember MoviePass? All the movies you wanted for just nine bucks? I'm Bridget Todd, host of There Are No Girls on the Internet. And this season, I'm digging into the tech stories we weren't told, starting with Stacey Spikes, the Black founder of MoviePass,

who got pushed out of the company he built. Everybody's trying to knock you down, and it's not gonna work, and no one's gonna like it. And then, boom, it's everywhere. And that was that moment. Listen to There Are No Girls on the Internet on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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