Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/14/2025: GOP Rep Claims UFO Evidence, Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene Fight Over Post-Trump World

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss the fight between Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene and what it means for a post Trump world, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna teling Joe Rogan that she's seen evidence of UFOs and interdimensional beings, and Netanyahu seeds potential for an upcoming war with Iran.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Let's get to the next part, shall we? Maga. And what does it all mean? So Laura Lumer, out with an interesting new take, which, you know, she may be right. So let's put it up there on the screen. Here's what she had to say.

Quote, I don't think the GOP is going to survive post-Trump. There's too many conflicting personalities. trying to jockey for the mantle to maga. None of them have what it takes to be Trump's successor. We are witnessing the end of a future post-Maga movement as we know it because everyone, quote, inside the big tent that the GOP forced on us realizes that they hate each other. There won't be a viable political movement post-Maga. You can see the writing on the wall. Nobody has what it takes. So, you know, I think she's right. I actually think she's 100% right. because Trump is the most beloved figure in the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan.

Now, by the way, this does, and let's explain and define terms, does that mean that the Republicans will not win a future election? No. What she's saying is that GOP, as it's currently constituted, is not going to survive post-Trump. I think that's accurate. And the reason why is his personality is the binding glue of everything. It's what keeps anti-Israel and pro-Israel folks fanatically pro-Trump who put their trust in the personality it's what keeps I don't even know like people who are

pro Steve Bannon want to raise taxes on the rich with people who like Ron Johnson who want to cut the corporate tax and don't want to stop stock trade banning it's like the singularity of his personality maha oh my god yeah maha's going to exist in the same party

as Lindsay Graham you know in the feet no it's not happening so it's his personality and his love with the base, which is what kind of keeps it all together. It's genuine occult of personality. And I actually think that's why Lumer is the most accurate in her explanation of Trumpism, because it's all about him. I'm not some supporter or whatever of Laura Lumer. I thought what she did in Veney and Prasad was disgusting. But my point is just that at a political level, I do think she's correct. It's also why whoever comes next, you're just going to have

a hell of a time. Because at a personality level, it's just like George H.W. did he successfully ride Reagan's coattails to the 98 election? Sure. But he got blown out in 92. He didn't have the same personality, the same connection. Trump is Reagan-ask in terms of his love with the base. And also, let's think about what it took for the GOP to have to come back in the 2000. It was eight years in the doldrums. A lot of it was defined by opposition to Clinton. I mean, you could define whether you won the election or not, you know, in 2000. But, you know, It came damn close for an electoral thing, and it took 9-11 and Iraq for you to win the popular vote in 2000. It took a long time.

And then post after that, it took 20 years to win the popular vote again. So I think we are in a similar kind of turning point where, you know, in the next administration, MTG is not going to have to couch every single criticism in, but I love Trump. She's just going to be like, here's what I think. And screw the current president. A lot of people did that under Bush. Nobody ever had that level of support with the base. I think the closest equivalent on the Democratic side, which has some lessons, is Obama, right? And there was a lot of Democratic triumphalism, the coalition of the Ascendant.

You know, there was an assumption that this Obama coalition was something that was durable, right? That it wasn't just specific to him and his particular, like, charm and charisma and his story and all of whatever that entailed for people. And that was just not true. You know, the Obama coalition, he was the only person who could put to him. together, the Obama coalition. He was very good at getting himself elected, not so good at, you know, getting other Democrats, especially in off years elected and certainly wasn't able to hand his mantle even one election forward. And Hillary Clinton is ultimately defeated by Donald Trump. And then, you know, to your point about does that, did that mean the Democratic

Party never won an election again? No, of course not. Joe Biden gets elected. But that has not stopped the overall sort of deterioration of the Democratic Party position and put it in a potential doom spiral. Now, I think Trump is sort of like in a sense like rescuing them from that. And there's a possibility that out of that you actually get a, you know, someone who is more in the Zoran mold who has the chrisman and has a different type of politics and has some distance from the sins of the past, et cetera. That's certainly a possibility at this point for rebirth for the Democratic Party. There nothing is remotely guaranteed. But I think it's very possible. the Republicans are similarly overestimating how much that realignment that they celebrate so much

is truly durable outside of the singular personality of Donald Trump. And, you know, he like, whether it's J.D. Vance or Don Jr., whoever, or Marco Rubio, whoever it is that he tries to really anoint as his successor, you know, I think he will have about as much sway with the electorate in anointing a successor as Barack Obama all. Well, you know, the Clinton example is a great one. So why did Al Gore fail in the 2000 election, where, by the way, even if you think he won or whatever, he only won by 500 votes in the state of Florida. It's a massive screw-up compared to 96. The 96 to 2000 map is one of the biggest sea changes in politics that very few people go back. And they don't look at it. They really ignore what happened. Well, the story within that was that Clinton, again, his support was all about Bubba like him and his talk. He's talking. you know, folksy kind of way of connecting, but it wasn't built on any, like, political message. And Gore tried to separate himself from Lewinsky, but also kind of embrace himself with his like steady hand on the wheel. It almost worked. But the point, actually, for whoever comes next,

is if Trump is unpopular, but very popular with the base, you cannot win your primary without wholly embracing him. This is a huge problem. Because in 08, McCain did what? He was like, yeah, Bush, he's like, fuck off. Like, don't ever come. with me, sit in the White House, I want nothing to do with you. And that was, you know, to the extent he had any chance, it was being able to draw some parallel away from Bush. And Bush, he didn't mind. Or maybe he did, but, you know, he didn't do anything about it. You think Trump is going to tolerate that? Right. I mean, what are you going to do? You're going to have to kiss Trump's ass all day long if you want to get yourself to win the primary. But then how do you

win a general election? Something I've been thinking about is in 27, I cannot wait to ask J.D. to be like, hey, man, you flamed Kamala for saying that you couldn't, you couldn't, had no difference between herself and Joe Biden. So do you have any difference in how you would have handled this presidency under Trump? He can't answer that, honestly. We all know it, okay? But that's a real problem if Trump is at 35% popularity, but 90% popularity with the GOP base. And, you know, that's one where a Democrat, you're not held by those chains. You can just say whatever you want. There is no leader of the Democratic Party. You can win the damn primary. And so you've got all of these forces which are built on his own personality. And also, look,

as long as he's alive, he will remain the tweeter in chief. It doesn't matter. You think he's going to give up the reins when he's not president? He will be the Mongol king in Mar-a-Lago who summons whoever the Republican is down there once a month. And because if they want something to be done, Trump has got to support it. So it's not George W. Bush who sales, you know, does his paintings and goes to Rangers games. Like, you think Trump will abide by the presidential norms of pro's presidency?

He's going to be tweeting up until the day he dies. So there's a lot of personality problems that are built into this that just never have existed in... I mean, maybe Theodore Roosevelt is the best example of a president who served two-ish terms,

you know, and then kind of tried to come back and did nuke a taft in the election, so that could be, you know, the scenario that we see in the future. I just see bad roads ahead, you know, for the GOP because of that personality base thing. And how are you going to run, you know, and establish yourself as something new unless you really are on a massive high watermark like the Reagan administration was in 89? I'm not so sure that that's going to happen. We're still three and a half years away.

Nobody really knows. Well, and you can also see it kind of coming apart in real time with all of this factional infighting that is broken out. And Laura Loomers at the center of, I think you're absolutely right that she understands. This is the reason why she comes to the White House and has the influence she does because she gets it. This is not about anything other than Donald Trump and the person of Donald Trump and loyalty to Donald Trump and whatever Donald Trump says. Like that is the end-all be-all. She understands that and that's the game she plays. And that's why she has been able to position herself so effectively in this administration.

But you've got you got her fighting with MTG. We'll give you some of those details in a minute. You've got the influencer wars with, you know, Candace versus Fuentes and Fuentes versus Tucker. And, you know, Fuentes really serve it. I see so much, so many parallels with, like, the left after Bernie's defeat in 2020. Absolutely. Where there's the sense of nihilism that takes hold, where you've got Jimmy Dore out there. Brianna, you know, as the, you know, the purist of the pure.

And it's a very similar kind of a dynamic that you see unfolding of all this, like, bitter acrimony, personality conflicts. And then you also have some, like, substantive, you have vast, actually. substantive policy differences between a number of these camps as well. But MTG and Laura Lumer have been fighting in a way that only the MAGA ladies can go at it. It really is a particular brand of messiness, like at new levels. We can put this up on the screen, some of these quotes. So this is from a Daily Beast rundown of all of this. The headline is, fuming Lumer goes nuclear on MDG and all-night attack, the far-right provocatory. has gone after her fellow MAGA Republican, Representative Margie Taylor Green, with a level of vitriol that is striking, even by Lumer Standards, calling the lawmaker a rabid dog and a lying, fake Christian whore.

In part, she said, this is a woman who allowed her sexual impulses to tear her family apart. She wants to now tear our country apart to try to steal Trump's movement away from him. Don't let this homewrecker become a country homewrecker. We can put the next piece up on the screen, a little bit from MTG. She says she has no about Lumer. She has no longtime relationships because she psychotically turns on everyone. Laura Lumer is the most unstable person and worst liability to ever walk in the Oval Office. Fighting began, they say, after Lumer stunned some of her own supporters by ranting against the military's decision to celebrate a medal of honor recipient.

There is a lot more here, by the way, in terms of the back and forth, was quite lengthy and extensive, including Lumer accusing Green. of getting bent over backwards inside the gym by every man who isn't your husband. So that was the general tenor of this dispute. I believe this came after Lumer had said something about MTG's quote-unquote roast beef in her pants. So these two have a long time acrimonious relationship saga. But like I said, to me it's just emblematic of a movement that everybody's trying to jockey for a position. They see, you know, the Trump era's coming to an end. They're trying to get in good with Trump.

They're trying to shape what comes next. They hate each other, and it's all kind of bubbling to the surface in a way that we haven't really seen in the past. Yeah, I mean, I said this to you, and look, I hope isn't taken to the wrong way. But as the parties switch up in terms of support based on education levels, it's not a surprise to see some of this burst out into the open. It's not exactly an elevated and classy dispute of it said. Yeah, it's look, I mean, you know, if you take a look. It's fun to cover. If you look at the ratings for the type of people who engage in reality television and those type of personalities, I mean, actually, let's think about it.

One of the things that has happened in the last, you know, Trump realignment is that a lot of reality TV stars, bodybuilders, like people and all that who are lesser educated, but, you know, also very popular, have become Trump supporters. So it would make quite a bit of sense that that behavior. Of course, and Trump cabinet members. You're right with WWE and, you know, UFC. everything. That's all Republican now. So, well, if that's the case, then that behavior is going to replicate itself. It's funny because it's at a demographic level. There's a viral thing going around right now of one of the richest neighborhoods in Illinois was our, it was a Republican district in 2012, and it's now D plus 35. And like that's the story of America, right? Like a 2012, it's called Winnet. I don't know. I'm not from Illinois. But anyway, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Illinois voted for Mitt Romney by overwhelming margins, voted. for Kamala by 35 points. And it's like, well, you know, those are the type of people who find a lot of this stuff very distasteful.

But the people who find it hilarious and interesting drama, et cetera, that's reality TV, that's the demographic. A lot of those people are Republican now, so you're going to see it replicated in its politics. And I think that's a very polite way of saying, trashy. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot of. was salvageable.

These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, got you.

On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors, and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. even know me as the people's princess, but now you're also going to know me as your favorite

host. Every week on my new podcast, fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all, from my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the FUD family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me. But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHart women's sports

and partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer.

Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Anna Paulina Luna on the Joe Rogan experience.

Very interesting episode. I actually recommend people go and listening to all of it. But Anna Paulina Luna, one of the congresswoman who has been at the spearhead of a lot of the UFO, UAP inquiries, some of the whistleblowers. She made some interesting claims around that that I'm going to return to. But first and foremost, you have a member of the United States Congress at the forefront on the UFO issue, making some absolutely extraordinary claims about things that she has seen. Now, claims are claims, and we need to see evidence, but at the very least, we can take it for what it is. Let's take a lesson.

You said that you've seen evidence. Like, what kind of evidence have you seen? I have seen photos. I have seen... What have you seen photos of? So I was in a skiff, and I can't discuss all that was in a skiff, but what I can tell you is, based on the photos that I've seen, I'm very confident that there's things out there that have not been created by mankind. It seems crazy that people... have access to information that shows that there's something outside of us that is more intelligent,

at least more capable than we are, and they hide it from everybody else. So let's just, you know, sit on that for a little bit, is that I've seen photos that I'm very confident that there are things that are out there that have not been created by mankind. This is allegedly like in a classified setting. And I have been pushing on this. It is so complicated because at the same time, she did claim that some of the whistleblowers who we've spoken about here on this show, how they pretended to have the flu

before they were supposed to show up for a briefing. Those people have now come out, at least one of them, Lou Elizondo, and he's spoken about how that's not true. So there even seems to be some intra-fighting within this relating to our previous block of messiness or whatever. And I'm not still quite sure exactly what's going on there.

But at the end of the day, what her, Tim Burchett, and a few other members of Congress were pushing for were some of these briefings, photos, and other things that are said to exist. The difficulty on this is we have been hearing this now for quite some time for years and years, right? I know how many times do I say here on the show? And it's becoming exhausting for people to say that people who have seen classified images of this or that

have yet been able to see actually something tangible. I will say on Luna's record, her attacks on the whistleblowers notwithstanding. On JFK, she's been solid. Don't take it from me. Take it from Jefferson Morley, who we've had here on the show, who I trust absolutely and totally on the JFK issue. And he said that she very seriously has been working with him and others in order to get this files out. They invited him to testify.

He worked, I believe, with her office and it streams of stuff behind the scenes, which allowed to get deep classification or release. And broadly saw that inquiry as Syria. So if we take that together with the UFO issue, I'll say there's some implicit trust, at least on the track record. But it's been a long time since that UFO hearing. We're going to need to have another one. But by and large, it's like, just release it at this point. And is it, I mean, maybe it's like Epstein. It exists. It can't be released. It's hidden. J.D. has said that he's, quote, working or whatever on the issue. Maybe Trump said the UFO files.

Maybe Trump isn't the UFO files. I mean, do you want to know the best presidential theory on UFOs? Sure. Is that Eisenhower had a summit with the aliens in 19th. This is serious. I'm not, I'm not kidding. Is that he had a summit with the aliens, I believe it was in 56, over how we're going to manage Earth and alien relations. Okay. That's a very serious actually talk. I mean, look, I'd like to see some more evidence, as well as I said. But on the UFO issue, very specifically, as a believer in the phenomenon, I will say at least it is encouraging that she says that she said this in a class right here, because at the very least, it's a falsifiable claim.

What I want, that's why I loved when Dave Grush went under oath. I'm like, we need more oath. We need more stuff which is falsifiable or not. No more illusions. Like she makes very specific claims. And specifically in this next clip, she made claims, which again, we can prove our false or not if the documentation is released. Let's take a lesson.

Do you think that it's possible that these are U.S. vehicles that are top secret? I definitely think that there's a level of advanced technology that the U.S. government has. And I think that that tech can be housed within the defense contract realm. And, of course, some information is going to be classified. But I can also tell you, and this might sound crazy, but based on our investigations and stuff that we've seen, okay, there is definitely something that I think would rival what we know currently with physics. and a tech that potentially is out there that we don't have the ability to reproduce because it would basically be like dropping a cell phone

off back during the time of maybe cavemands. So, like, we just don't have the tech to develop it yet. There's definitely something that I can tell you with confidence that exists that we don't know how to explain currently. So when you say that it operates outside our understanding of physics, what specifically are you saying?

Like, what happened? To, I guess, break it down in simple terms, is that I think that some of the tech that exists, that whatever these things have, these energy things have. Energy things? What do you mean? Well, they call them interdimensional beings. I think that they can actually operate through the time spaces that we currently have. It's really changing the way that we understand, you know, the origins of life and the spiritual reality that we know.

When you say interdimensional beings, that they know that these are interdimensional beings, how do they know that? So based on testimony would be based on witnesses that have come forward. But what I can tell you is I've just were told that they were interdimensional. No, no, that they've seen things. And what I can tell you without getting into classified conversations is that there have been incidences that I believe where very credible people have reported that there have been movement outside of time and space. That's very vague. Yeah. So look.

Unfortunately. Yeah. Look, have I seen a portal open? No. Have I seen a spaceship? Personally, no. Have I seen evidence of this? Yes.

Have I seen photo documentation of aircraft that I believe were not made by mankind? Yes. Is there historical significance to this? Yes. Is there multiple events that go back to, I would argue, maybe even before the time of Christ that have documented this in text? Yes. So do I believe that the government has access to certain technology? Yes, to an extent. And I believe that certain contractors potentially have back engineered this tech. I think that that's what can explain

the advancements that we're seeing. All right. I mean, what do you think, Crystal? I know it sounds crazy. At this point, we just got to see the evidence. That's part of it. My assumption until I see any sort of evidence is that this is bullshit and she's telling Rogan what she wants to hear. But that has to be the default assumption. If there's no evidence that's offered, you have, like, these are wild, extraordinary claims that are being made. So you better bring something other than, like, you know, you heard from a witness theoretically and there might be something, but you can't really say anything.

I am getting sick of, I have seen, like, you know, former Undersecretary of Defense coming out and me, like, I've seen that there's an extraordinary video. I've heard this now for probably five, six years, right, about this video that allegedly exist of a UFO passing in between two fighter aircraft and the two pilots absolutely freak out at the level of speed. You know, very similar to the original videos. I mean, you're sick of it. Yeah. And I think that's the default at this point because we just have yet, we have heard so many promises, so much slowering from the bureaucracy from the Pentagon. We've seen so many claims like this. Luna, by the way, here is not testifying under oath, which grush to his credit actually did.

And what's important also here about the contextualization of what she's saying is I've seen claims from people who said they've experienced it. That fits actually with the original Grush testimony before Congress where he was talking. Because remember, his goal was to compile all of the information of the reports. And that's eventually what led to his whistleblower report. We at just this point have got to see, like some release or some sort of evidence. And it's also disappointing, I would say, for her to, you know, imply that they were not credible, but then also at this point taking some of their words seriously. And so at this point, we really are, I think it's kind of make or break,

where it either has to come out or a lot of the trust is just going to be killed forever. Yeah. Because we've seen so much of this like winking and nodding. It's like Epstein. It's the similar thing. It's the exact same thing. They come out, they say they're going to do it, and then they basically show a complete and a total cover-up. The cover-up is enough for people to think that there is a there-a-there.

And of course, I do believe that there is certainly a there-a-there. But I am getting sick of a lot of these people. At this point, it seems like she's using it to try and get, you know, people like us are talking about it. Yeah. Release and do something like she did with JFK or I just don't want to hear about it anymore from you. I would be better off not hearing it than to, you know, get your hopes up and to get crushed like over and over again. Yeah. And, you know, Trump made it quite explicit.

Yeah, he made a big deal about this. So did RFK, remember when he was on our show? Yes, he did. And I asked him about it multiple times. He claimed to have had a briefing about it, but hasn't. said anything. Yeah, no, that's a great point too. And you remember Trump specifically talking about the drones and how he's going to reveal everything when he gets in and it's like, okay, and then he comes out and he's just like, it's nothing to worry about. Like, I can tell you, I know what it is.

And it's nothing you should worry about. Oh, okay, this is the transparency. Thanks. This is great. Thanks. So I guess that's just, I just sort of roll my eyes at this stuff until I get something more concrete at this point. I think that's fair. I think it's a normal reaction now at this point. Like I said, I would hope that this is a precursor to actually something in the future, like she's done with JFK. But otherwise, ma'am, we're sick of hearing just claims we actually want to see evidence and some disclosure. So with that, we have a great guest standing by. Dave DeCamp. Let's get to it. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it.

They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases. But everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools,

they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, got you. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable.

Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fud. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a People's Princess,

but now you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all.

From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete

on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the Fudd family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me. But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to fud around and find out. A production of IHeart women's sports

and partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new announcements.

the stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more. And found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on the street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal.

He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. There have been some troubling signs coming out from the, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu about a potential return to war with Iran. So to break down where we are, we are very happy to be joined by Dave DeKamp.

He is the news editor of the great website, Antewar.com, and also the host of anti-war news with Dave DeKamp. Welcome. Good to see you, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Of course. So let me go ahead and start by playing Netanyahu in his own words. In English language, for some reason, appeal to the people of Iran. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a bit of this. Today I'm going to make an unprecedented offer to Iran.

It relates to water. The Iranian people are victims of a cruel and tyrannical regime that denies them vital water. Israel stands with the people of Iran, and that is why I want to help save countless Iranian lives. Here's how. Iran's meteorological organization says that nearly 96 percent of Iran suffers from some levels of drought. Issa Kalantari, a former Iranian agriculture minister,

said that 50 million Iranians could be forced out of their homes due to environmental damage. 50 million. Millions of Iranian children are suffering due to mismanagement, to incompetence, and the theft of vital resources by the Iranian regime. Now, Israel also has water challenges. We've developed cutting-edge technologies to address them. Israel recycles nearly 90% of its wastewater. That's far more than any other country on Earth.

We invented drip irrigation. Our technology targets individual plants with exactly the nutrients they need for each plant. Israel has the know-how to prevent environmental catastrophe in Iran. I want to share this information with the people of Iran. Sadly, Iran bans Israelis from visiting, so we'll have to get creative. We will launch a Farsi website with detailed plans on how Iranians can recycle their wastewater.

The Iranian regime shouts, death to Israel. In response, Israel shouts, life to the Iranian people. The people of Iran are good and decent. They shouldn't have to face such a cruel regime alone. We are with you. Dave, he's just such a generous and caring man, I think, is what we should really take away from that. Yeah, I mean, it is rich of him to kind of frame his, you know, himself as some kind of humanitarian that wants to bring water to a people when he's blockading and starving the people of Gaza. But, you know, we've seen him put out these videos before.

And really the last time he did it was during what we call now, I guess, the 12-day war that Israel launched on Iran. So this is concerning to see because we do appear to be on the trajectory toward another confrontation here just because of what we see coming from Israel, the U.S., and Iran. Essentially, Iran's position has been that they're willing to resume nuclear negotiations with the U.S. if they can get some kind of assurances that they won't be attacked again, which I think is a very reasonable position, considering the U.S. and Israel actually used the cover of the previous negotiations to launch the war. And I mean, the U.S. really, like the Trump administration really spent its diplomatic credibility on this. Israel actually codenamed the initial attack, the initial airstrikes that targeted Iranian leadership,

the Red Wedding, referring to the Game of Thrones scene, which is, you know, a massacre, on betrayal. It's just, and Israel Katz, the defense minister, recently actually said that publicly that it was called it the Red Wedding. And he's been threatening to kill Khamene, the Iranian supreme leader. So Iran wants assurances, and you also have President Trump threatening to bomb Iran again if they resume in Richmond. You have this stuff coming from Netanyahu. And what he also said in that video is, you know, take to the streets, essentially rise up against your government. So these are not assurances that they're not going to be attacked again if they resume the negotiations with the U.S. We're seeing reports just breaking right before we started

recording that Reuters is reporting that Khamene has decided that they should resume the negotiations with the U.S. I'm skeptical if that that's true. At this moment, Reuters' sources on Iran aren't always correct, but it's just we have several dynamics here that don't look good. And another thing is the European countries, the UK, France, and Germany, a big difference between the negotiations that the Trump administration was engaged in with Iran from when Obama was engaged in similar negotiations is that the Europeans were not on board this time. It seemed like almost like they wanted war. And after Israel launched the war, we even saw the German chancellor, Merr, say, Israel's doing our dirty work. And this is right before this when they started being critical

of what Israel is doing in Gaza. And that's a whole other aspect of this. You know, with the genocide in Gaza, I mean, the phase that we're in now, what they're preparing for, this takeover of Gaza City, is going to be absolutely horrific. And what's a nice distraction from that is a new war with Iran. And, you know, as Trita Parsi wrote in foreign policy, a very excellent article, I really kind of summarized all this stuff. You know, Israel did not win the war with Iran.

One point that he made was that one of his... Israel's goals was that they want Iran to be like Syria, to be like Lebanon, to be one of these countries that they could just bomb with impunity. But they didn't achieve that, because right up until the last moment, Iran was hitting them with their missiles. And right now, Iran is rebuilding, you know, working to rebuild its air defenses, replenish its missiles. So Israel only wants that to go on for so long. The big question is, is Trump going to support another war with Iran? And based on what he's been saying when it comes to Israel, it seems likely to me that he would. Yeah, we actually have Treata Parsi's article here. We can put it up there on the screen about the next Israel-Iran war is coming. I mean, Dave, can you just break down what he talks about here about the strategic calculus of both countries now could mean an even more violent war, which he predicts, by the way, could start as early as August as in where we're talking right now.

Yeah, so one reason why I think he put that August timeline is because, again, the France, France, the UK and Germany, they're threatening to reimpose what they call the snapback sanctions, which were U.N. Security Council sanctions lifted by the 2015 Iran deal. And the threat has always been to reimpose them. And some Iranian officials are saying, we don't know if this is kind of their official line, that if those sanctions are imposed, they're going to withdraw from the nonproliferation treaty. And I think that would be the pretext for the U.S. and Israel to launch another war if they did that. Or it would at least give Netanyahu a better argument with the Trump administration. Because Iran wants there to be consequences for these actions, for the bombing. You know, after the bombing, they ended cooperation with the IAEA, even though they are still in talks with them.

But another point that he makes, as I said, you know, they want Iran to either be impotent, essentially, that they could bomb them without any trouble. Or they do want regime change. And, you know, I think people get the wrong idea. You know, I don't think there's really any scenario where U.S. troops are going into Iran. They don't want to replace the regime. They just want to destroy it. They want to sink the country into chaos. And, you know, you see that with Syria right now.

Israel supported the regime change against Assad and this new government came in. I mean, they are an al-Qaeda government. It's literally the guy who founded al-Qaeda in Syria, who's part of the government. But even though he's been, Al-Shaara, the new so-called president, has been very deferential toward Israel. We've seen Israel bomb them. So it's clear, you know, they don't want to unified Syria. They would prefer shattered Iran to this, you know, relatively stable one that we see. Another thing about the calculations that Parsi talks about is that Iran has, sorry, Israel has always had really significant intelligence assets inside Iran.

And apparently with the first wave of attacks, you know, people on the ground and drones that were fired from inside Iran played a big role in hurting their air defenses. But we've seen this big crackdown in Iran. I think they've arrested like 20,000 people. So they're losing. I think they probably spent a lot of their intel assets. So there's a lot of reasons why Israel might want to hit them again soon, and they need the U.S. I mean, that's just the fact, because the U.S. intercepted so many Iranian missiles and, you know, besides just bombing the nuclear facility. So this is very much Israel wanting to drag the U.S. into another war.

Got it. Yeah. The other question I have is whether they, since they named it the Red Wedding, if they watched the rest of that series and saw how it turned down for that family. We'll put that aside. In any case, picking backing off of what you were saying. there. You know, what indications do we have from Trump about how he would behave if Israel goes back to war with Iran? You know, he seemed to want this, and this is what Dr. Parsi lays out in his piece. He seemed to want it to be sort of like a one and done. Do you think that he has

the fortitude to resist Israel's endless entreaties for us to get, you know, directly engaged once again in a hot war with Iran? Based on what I've seen from Trump, I mean, it doesn't seem like he wants a big war, but we've seen kind of the rhetoric is, oh, if they start, you know, restart their enrichment program again, you know, we'll, you know, we'll blow them away again. You know, we'll, we'll hit him again. And I think the lesson he learned from this and the same lesson that he learned from Soleimani in his first administration, when he assassinated the Iranian general and Iran's response was very choreographed.

They fired some missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq and essentially gave them notification. And this happened again. I mean, this was a big concern with this war, is the U.S. Iran, are they going to hit American basis hard, or they're going to be American casualties? And they didn't. This time again, it was choreographed, and they gave the U.S. notice. So I think the lesson Trump learned, and I think kind of the people he's listening to on this, are saying, you could hit Iran hard. And they're not going to do anything. And I think they know that in Tehran, that that is, you know, that if this happens again, as Saagar mentioned before,

I should get into that angle of what Parsi said, that it could be bloodier than last time. I think that in Iran, you know, the calculation is going to be different because it was pretty clear that they were trying to stop. You know, they were hitting Israel hard, but, you know, it was clear. They were saying, you know, if you stop attacking us, we'll stop attacking you, and that'll be that. And then again, they got bombed by the U.S., but they gave them notice before they hit the base in Qatar. But this time around, I think things will be different, especially if they are just going to go for trying to kill the Supreme Leader and things like that. Yeah, I mean, I think all of this is just so incredible. dangerous, Dave. And I mean, when you look at it in the future, like what are some of the

critical steps that we should look for? Like already this video from Netanyahu, it's not looking good, right? The fact that it's in English, it's a telegraph to the administration. You talked there about the August timeline. What are some other things our audience and others can look out for? I think those snapback sanctions are really a big thing. Because it's not really clear what France, what they're asking for, with the E3 countries that they call and the signatories to the JCPOA are asking for. They say they got to resume negotiations and they want them to resume cooperation with the IAEA. But again, you know, they're very eager and doing this all very fast and giving them a deadline. So it just to me makes diplomacy seem unlikely. But I think we see

those sanctions go into place. If we see Iran take that step to leave the nonproliferation treaty, those are signs I think that we're going toward war. And also, I mean, you know, when it comes to Trump. I mean, the fact that he does appear to be allowing Israel, supporting Israel's escalations in Gaza, you know, and saying, oh, it's totally up to Israel. You know, they frame it like it's all Israel's a sovereign country that makes its own decisions, but they're completely relying on U.S. military aid for their military operations. So like, if Israel's escalating in Gaza, the U.S. needs to support it. So if Trump is going to support all that, then, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if he supports another war with Iran.

You know, we're just not seeing any kind of reining in of Netanyahu here. The strategy seems to be giving him like a bear hug and saying he's great and, you know, there's a witch hunt against him. And it's clear he wants this war with Iran. Yeah. So, you know, another potential escalation, I think is in Lebanon because, you know, I mentioned, I think I mentioned that this would serve, a war with Iran would serve as a good distraction from Gaza.

We're also seeing indications for a big escalation in Lebanon. the U.S. is demanding that the Lebanese government disarm Hezbollah, and they've agreed to do that. But how are they going to do that? I mean, that could be potential civil war. But they gave them a deadline. And they're basically threatening, you know, Israel has been bombing Lebanon. They signed this so-called ceasefire agreement last year. But one side ceased fire, but the other didn't. But they're essentially threatening escalation of Lebanon. I think that's kind of another error to keep an eye on. And then when we talk about the war with Iran getting bloodier, one thing that we didn't. with this war was the Shia militias in Iraq, you know, there's always a concern of them targeting U.S. bases. I think if this war happens again, we will see that kind of the Iran kind of unleashing its capabilities and its allies in the region as well. Dave, my last question for you is I wanted to get you to respond to something we actually covered earlier in the show. Control room C1, if you have it, if we could put that up on the screen. But I'm sure you saw Netanyahu acknowledging his connection.

to the vision of, quote-unquote, greater Israel, saying he's on a historic and spiritual mission for the Jewish people. And so, you know, connect the potential escalation with Iran, with the actions in Lebanon, in Syria, and, you know, with the West Bank and Gaza, you know, what is the big picture here for Israel? What are the goals that they are trying to accomplish? Yeah, I mean, that's really something that he said that. And, you know, I think it's clear. So in the region right now, I mean, the only country that can really inflict damage on Israel is Iran. You know, the Houthis in Yemen have been able to get some missiles through, and there's certainly a problem for Israel, but it's not like they can do the damage like Iran can. So when he talks about greater Israel, I mean, we've seen them invade southern Syria after the regime change, and they're continuing to push further in there.

And members of the government, including Bezal Smotrich, talk openly about the idea of just taking over southern Lebanon. And, of course, we just saw Smotridge approve some major settlement expansion in the West Bank. So all this expansion in the region, really the only game in town when it comes to being able to threaten Israel's expansion is Iran. And so I believe that's why they're the last piece that Netanyahu wants to knock off the board. So, you know, kind of goes along with the so-called greater Israel. everything kind of that's happening in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and potentially beyond based on what Netanyahu said. Yeah.

Well, Dave, we really appreciate your analysis, man, and I hope you'll come back on the show. Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you. Programming, reminder, the Friday show will be on Saturday morning. We'll maybe have a special guest, hopefully, to break down the Trump-Pooten Summit for everybody.

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