Part Of The Problem - Trump to Sell War at the SOTU

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "The Fire" Bernstein talk about Steve Witkoff's statements that Iran is "a week away" from having nuclear weapons, the backlash towards Tucker Carlson from conservatives regarding his Huckabee interview, Turkey threatening to step in, and more.Support Our Sponsors:CovePure - Head to http://www.covepure.com/problem and for a limited time, get $200 off your CovePure water purifierBrunt Workwear - http://bruntworkwear.com/ Use code PROBLEMFÜM - http://tryfum.com/problem & Use code PROBLEMProlon - https://prolonlife.com/potpPart Of The Problem is available for early pre-release at https://partoftheproblem.com as well as an exclusive episode on Thursday!PORCH TOUR DATES HERE:https://robbernsteincomedy.com/eventsFind Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarianSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's up, what's up everybody. Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire. Bernstein. How goes it today, Robbie the Fire? I'm doing well, and I'm excited for the dojo this weekend. Yes, indeed.

Comedy Dojo right here in New Jersey this weekend. Come on out. Come on out in the snow. Trek out to our show. We're going to have a lot of card. I'll be cleared up by then. They got parking there. No big deal.

Yeah, you'll be fine, dude. Roads are better than ever. come see us this weekend comic davesmith.com for those ticket links and uh listen i love playing the smaller rooms because it's uh it's just so much fun but this will absolutely sell out the amount of emails we got this past weekend of people going can you get me in can you get me in and we tried to squeeze people in but at some point that's that's it there's no space so yeah up your tickets early don't sleep on it people yes agreed agreed agreed get them early um okay so let's get into some stuff so today tonight is Donald Trump's State of the Union address.

So this will be, I mean, I guess this episode will kind of serve as a preview toward that, although we got a few things to talk about. But tomorrow I'll record a response, you know, to the state of the union, like my thoughts on it or any of that. I know people do like live shows and stuff. I saw a couple people like on Twitter being like, oh, you should do a live show during the state of the union. And I've just never, I've never liked doing that. I don't know. I always kind of like, let me, can I watch the speech and then sleep on it and think about it

and then kind of give my thoughts on it the next day? You know what I mean? But like, anyway, I know Breaking Points is doing a live show tonight. And they're more like actual journalists. So that makes sense. But so I'll be watching the speech with the rest of you tonight. Maybe I'll live tweet a little bit about it. And then I'll, well, I'll,

I'll give you my thoughts tomorrow. I will say, going into it, I looked, I was watching some clips of last year's State of the Union address. It was about a year ago from today. And because that's kind of like, you know, as you guys who listen to the show probably know, that's just like what I've been thinking about a lot lately is just like the unbelievable contrast between where we were at then and where we're at now. And dude, like there's little moments like I forgot about in the speech.

I'll talk, you know, if this is, you know, it's February now. So this is, you know, a month after he had taken office for his second term. And it was like, dude, I mean, talking about we're going to end the war in Ukraine. They had, if you remember, this was during the original ceasefire that Whitkoff, who will be hearing more from today, had worked out. And there, you know, there was one point where he goes, I've created the Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk and like Elon Musk has this crazy standing ovation. We've already found hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud. You know, it's all just like the borders under control.

He had that great line, of course, probably the best line of his presidency. They said we needed new legislation. Turns out we just needed a new president. But it was like the borders under control. The budget's going to be slashed. Gone are the days of regime change wars. A new era of transparency is amongst, you know, and wow a year later essentially Donald Trump's going up there to sell the neocons final war seems to be what the um when i say final war the final war in their whole big plan of remaking the middle east i'm sure they'll have more wars for us that they want to fight going forward but um man what a difference it makes and and of course back then he was enjoying his record high approval ratings and just the way he had captured the culture

and the energy and the vibes, if you remember, Rob, and now just totally, totally in shambles. What a difference of the year makes? It's going to be exciting to see how he celebrates himself amidst a failure of a year. So I'm sure we're going to hear about how tariffs are saving the country and he's still going to do it, even though we got a corrupt Supreme Court. I'm sure he's going to talk about how we're cleaning up South America

and we're taking out these drug lords. I'm sure we're going to hear about stability in the world, thanks to the fact that we're no longer a weak country, but it's going to be quite fascinating to watch him celebrate himself amidst a low vote, low poll numbers, and just overall discontent with Donald Trump. Yeah, from what I've read, it's the word on the street is that it's going to be a long speech.

He wants to go long. He went long last year. It was a really long speech last year. He wants to give a long speech. because there's so much to talk about, so much success. And so if you're Donald Trump celebrating yourself, that's kind of your favorite topic. Well, that is true. No, I mean, look, this is what he'll get up there and talk about how great he is. Honestly, my prediction for it is kind of boring.

Like, I just think it's, I don't know, I just, I find it boring to listen to Donald Trump tell you how great Donald Trump is for two hours, which I have a feeling is what we're going to get. And I, yeah, I mean, if I, my, my guess would be a, basically what you said, Rob, right? Bragging about how great everything is. He will tonight, here's my prediction. He will simultaneously brag about what a success the 12-day war was and talk about how we need to go either reach a deal or start a war with Iran, right?

Like, I guarantee you both of those things will be in. He'll brag about the success of Venezuela. He'll brag about the success of, you know, whatever, every program that he's had. the tariffs. He'll knock the Supreme Court for shooting it down. These are all my predictions for it because they'll be right there in the front row. He'll knock them for that, how ridiculous it is, and blah, blah, blah. But I will say that, I think, not that Donald Trump, I don't think he has any ability to do this, not because of his own ability. I mean, just given the situation. But, Well, let me say it like this.

From my sources, I've talked to some people who are close to this matter, who would know. And it's looking like the hawks, what I'm hearing is that the hawks have convinced Donald Trump and that he's, or if not convinced Donald Trump, let's say, maybe convinced isn't the right word. they've assured that he will be doing what they want him to do. And so it does look to me like an attack on Iran is imminent. And if that's the case, Rob, then if you're giving a state of the union address, right, which still to this day, because there's not much that still has like cachet anymore in Americana. You know, like not everyone's going to watch the Tonight Show. Not even everyone's going to watch the Super Bowl halftime show, right?

Like half of the people are switching over to the other one. But the state of the union is kind of something that, well, everyone who loves Donald Trump, everyone who hates Donald Trump, everyone who can't, you know, like people watch that. It'll get clipped up. It'll get dissected on podcasts. People will talk a lot about it. And so if you have made the decision that you're going to go to war, right, Rob? And this is a war that, depending on which poll you trust,

75 to 80% of the American people are against. And you know, you know, Rob, like I've, you know, I've been an adult for an adult amount of time. Like, I've been, I've been an adult for, you know, adult, you know, more than the legal voting age amount of time. And, you know, I've just, I've seen a lot of wars play out. And most of the wars that I've seen the U.S. get involved in were reasonably popular at the beginning. They usually start at their most popular. And then as the costs of war become clear, they get less and less and less popular. So you're in a situation where that 75 to 80% of the people are against a war that you want to launch.

And you know that's the starting point. So anyway, I guess my point is you got your biggest speech of the year, your biggest platform, and you got a war that you're about to launch that's enormously unpopular. It seems like this is your opportunity to try your best to really sell the American people on why we got to go start dropping bombs on Tehran. And you can't go with the truth, which is that, yeah, we know it's a stupid idea, but we have to do it because Israel wants us. that's probably not going to work.

So we'll see. But, you know, again, I don't think, I just don't think there's much of a pitch that he can make tonight because I don't know, Rob, what can you say about this? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Prolon by El Nutra. Prolon is a revolutionary plant-based nutrition program that nourishes the body while making cells believe they're fasting.

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shouldn't really be surprising, but it does seem like it's not just the stock of Donald Trump that's gone down tremendously over the last year, but it seems like the stock of every major figure associated with the administration. So obviously you could think, you know, Cash Patel or Dan Bonchino, that Tulsi Gabbard and the, you know, the shit she pulled during the 12-day war. I don't think she'll ever really reputationally recover from that. And the most recent one to me was, and we didn't talk about this on the show the other day because Tucker Huckabee kind of eclipsed everything. By the way, should pause there and mention, did you see Robb that, I mean, it was pretty

great, but that Huckabee actually caused like a legit, like international fucking outrage, like a legitimate like diplomatic like catastrophe where there was this open letter that was signed onto by like every country in the region being like yeah what are you said did you just say that is the right to take over the whole Middle East which really was the absolute last thing that the Trump administration needed you know as they're trying to get ready to launch a war in a region where most of the regional players don't want the war. And then you're sitting there and you're like, shoot, when you kind of need them to be on board as much as possible,

then your ambassador to Israel goes and pisses them all off by telling them that God promised their land to Benjamin Netanyahu. But anyway, so that was kind of amusing. But the most recent one I did think was Whitkoff, who at least to some degree had remained like, kind of seemed like a figure who was like maybe trying to figure out some of these deals here. I mean, obviously he wasn't perfect, but he did put some pressure on the Israelis back over a year ago when he first got that initial ceasefire.

It was like maybe he's at least somebody who's trying. And then the stuff he said the other day in this interview, was it Laura Trump is interviewing Whitkoff here, which seems like shouldn't happen. But you know what I'm saying? It just seems like that's probably not the way it should ever go. But here, let's play the clip of Witkoff the other day. Truly, like, astounding stuff. It's up to 60%.

They're probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb-making material. And that's really dangerous. So I can't have that. This is something that they have to stick with until they prove to us that, you know, they can behave. I know that we have red lines. I got to pause there. Yeah.

How about over with Iran? Because just off the bat, what that tells you is that Trump lied when he said totally obliterated. And we had pointed out at the time, how can you say that they're within a week of a breakout period and that you did one targeted strike and supposedly destroyed one of their nuclear facilities? But you don't know where they put the enriched uranium. But it's problem solved lesson learned. And now, as we expected, what is this? Six, seven months later? oh, they're still within a week of a bomb.

And actually, when we struck them the last time, we didn't accomplish anything. Yeah, right. Now, first of all, I mean, the thing is that Whitcough here is just lying. It's just straight up lying. There's just no evidence at all that there are. And in fact, Netanyahu, I can't remember off the top of my head what interview this was. But Netanyahu admitted as much recently that, like, therefore, yeah, it would be like a few years before they actually can get a, develop a nuclear weapon. So this is just nonsense.

But you do make a fair point that, of course, it is completely contradictory to what the official talking point of the administration has been, that they set them back years. Like, they set them back years. They obliterated their nuclear program. Now, I think the reality of the situation is actually somewhere in the middle. You know, so, right, and you said you were just doing some deep dives on this, Rob. but so you know this stuff but essentially right the the positioning was always the idea of being a nuclear threshold state is to have the deterrent and now iran is not the only nuclear threshold state um there's uh japan and south korea both are as well think brazil as well um but so i don't

I'd have to check on that. I'm not sure. So the idea is like, well, look, for Japan or for South Korea, look, you got China right there, you got North Korea right there. They all have nuclear weapons. So the idea is that you don't have nuclear weapons, but you're letting everyone know that you are capable of making them if you want to. If we needed to, we could start making nuclear weapons. And so the Iranians, this was their essentially response

to 9-11 to being put on the axis of evil. And right, there were, if you think about it on the, so after 9-11, George W. Bush puts three countries who had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11 on the axis of evil. It was Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. And I've long suspected North Korea just got on there

so it wasn't so obvious that this was all about Israel. Like they just threw one on there to be like, no, you too. But so North Korea race. to get a nuclear weapon, and they got one, and we've left him alone ever since. Iraq turned over all their stuff, welcomed in the UN inspectors, said, we don't have anything, we're not developing nuclear weapons. We went in and deposed him, hung him, killed Saddam Hussein, destroyed the whole country. Omar Gaddafi totally waived the white flag, said, I'll turn over all the chemical weapons I have,

I'll turn over my nuclear, everything, whatever you want. went in there, sodomized him to death, destroyed the country. So Iran tried to meet in the middle and they went, okay, look, we're going to start a nuclear program, but we're not going to make a bomb. And we don't want to make a bomb, but, you know, you attack us and you never know. Maybe that will change. So this is what we've been saying for years and years, right? And then, of course, when Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, well, they ultimately started upping their enrichment,

and it's pretty obviously so that they could have a negotiation. chip to negotiate away. And what is it that they want, right? Well, they want pretty clear what Iran wants. What Iran wants is security guarantees, just don't attack us, and sanction relief. That's what they want. And so they bring it up to 60%, and then they go, okay, we'll negotiate, and we could negotiate coming back down to the 3% to 5% that we were under when Obama was in the JCPOA.

And so then, of course, Trump insists, no, there's got to be zero. insist, no, there's got to be zero enriched uranium or whatever. And they go, well, look, we can't do that, but we could come down to where we were. Then Israel sneak attacks them, they do all this. But as we had been saying for a long time, right? So up until, I'm not sure, I'd have to double check this, but up until the 12-day war, Iran were still members of the non-proliferation treaty in good standing. They were still members of the JCPOA on top of that. So they had a whole inspections regime that was coming into Iran. So we knew they were at 60% uranium. Well, how did we know it? Because the IAEA was inspecting them and they could measure. Okay, they're at 60%. So we knew they were at 60% enriched uranium.

Now, in order to break out and actually develop a bomb, they would have had to kick the inspectors out or we would have watched, you know what I'm saying, or developed it right in front of them, which would have put them in violation of the agreement. But if they had kicked the inspectors out, then they could have raced to a bomb theoretically, and all the best estimates that it would still take them years, even if they did that. But according to our own annual threat assessment from that year that Tulsi Gabbard had submitted and testified to before Congress,

just that they haven't even made the political decision to get a bomb. So they haven't even decided they want to get a bomb, let alone start taking the steps toward that. But just to be clear, we always said, And if you really don't want them to see them make a bomb, then don't attack them. If you attack them, they might make a bomb. That was kind of the standoff. You know, it was like, hey, we could make a bomb, but we're not going to.

So don't attack us, or we might. We called that bluff, or we called that we'll see whether it's a bluff or not. But since then, since the 12-day war, we'll immediately afterward the Ayatollah kick the inspectors out. The JCPOA, I think, is essentially over now. And I think, again, I'd have to double check this. I think they have let some inspectors back in limited quantity, but like we have far less eyes on them now than we did back then. So yeah, Rob, like, we are in a situation now.

We're like, we don't know where they move that enriched geranium. We don't know what they, what efforts they've been making to try to rebuild. And so like, it's not, now, Whitkoff just saying they're a week away, that's stupid. no reasonable person thinks that. But the point is that there, yes, we, like, if your goal was for Iran to not get a nuke, well, then yes, you retards have handled this in the dumbest way possible, and you've put us in the most precarious position about that, you know, as far as that's concerned. So we don't really know at this point.

And I don't know. I mean, I don't, you know, I've never like said, Iran will never get a nuke. In fact, I've always thought that, like, if they were going to get one, this is the type of thing that might push them toward it for obvious reasons. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Cove Pure. Here's the thing. Everyone jumps into the new year buying new supplements, trying a new diet or a new workout, but they completely ignore the most important basic thing, water, even mild dehydration impacts energy, focus, and metabolism. And when you think about all the garbage that's in our water,

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All right. Let's get back into the show. Yeah. Well, I agree with you. I don't think they're a week away, but I think the administration trying to lie to us again and say that they are a week away contradicts what they were saying earlier. That's for sure, yes. Exposed that the last effort was a failure. And I think it also just speaks to why these half measures are really stupid. because even now it sounds like Donald Trump's trying to flirt with, well, we're going to see in a second that Donald Trump is a little bit surprised that they're not just, uh, acquiescing to his grandiose. Yeah, let's, let's get to that claim. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Even before we play that, if you think that you're now just going to do a targeted strike, uh, and then that's going to, what's going to get them to go, oh, Donald Trump really means business. You might also actually just be pushing them to go nuclear because here they are. They're actually not aggressing towards anybody. And now you want them to give up their ballistic missiles program, which what deterrent then do they have to not just be stricken by Israel or for you to show up more aggressively? And if now they don't have a nuke when you guys are just, you know, outright flirting with a full out war with them. Or, hey, we're going to come in here by force. I don't know. You might, that might be what pushes them over the edge and goes, hey, we actually need a nuke.

Because otherwise they're going to be coming here with boats every couple months and threatening to take, take. over our country so yeah i mean well look it's it's rob i mean and look i guess you could make um the the kind of exception for like there's been some u.s weapons and then just recently i think there was british weapons that were fired uh at a deep into russian territory by ukraine but even that is still through a proxy but if you think since world war two the american war machine that we've you know has come to dominate the world, and all the wars that our government in the name of us has launched, all the just bloody wars of aggression, I mean, I'm saying all of them, whether it's the Korean war and the war in Vietnam, or the war in Serbia, war in the Balkans, the war in Iraq, the Persian Gulf War,

then Afghanistan, Iraq again, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, are interventions in Nicaragua and Venezuela and Cuba and you know Honduras just go all through the list all the wars one thing all the opponents have in common is that they don't have nuclear weapons we just don't really fuck with nuclear armed countries in the same way I have the closest I guess you could come is that we had a we had a pretty big drone war campaign in Pakistan but we ultimately stopped when they really pushed back on us and so yeah if you are Iran at this point it might seem like pretty reasonably like yo the Israelis and the Americans are just gonna keep fucking with us until we get a nuke so you certainly heavily incentivize that but here let's uh let's play that portion of the wick-cuh is that coming up next here Rob yes okay yeah yeah let's play let's play the rest of this the president asked me that this morning and he's I don't want to use the word

frustrated it's almost because he understands he's got plenty of alternatives But it's curious. He's curious as to why they haven't, I don't want to use the word capitulated, but why they haven't capitulated? Why under this sort of pressure with the amount of sea power, naval power that we have over there, why they haven't come to us and said, we profess that we don't want to be, we don't want a weapon. So here's what we're prepared to do. And yet it's hard to sort of get them to that place. Well, there's that pressure.

There's also pressure coming from within. I mean, I don't, like, it's hard to conclude anything other than Whitkoff is lying here. You know what I mean, Rob? But he's just lying through his teeth. Well, I think he's lying about, he's still framing it like this is just an effort to keep them from getting nuclear missiles and or going nuclear. And I think that that's a very easy thing to negotiate. And that's why that's not what they put forward as being the negotiations. The negotiations include no more ballistic missiles, at least from the last I read.

and I think there might be pushing for zero enrichment. I'm actually not sure about that. Yes, they've said it several times. Yeah. I don't know exactly what's going on in the private indirect negotiations, but they've certainly publicly restated the poison pill from last summer over and over again, that it's 0% enrichment. But then they go quite a bit further.

And they go, and you have to get rid of all your intercontinental ballistic missiles that are long range enough to touch Israel. And you have to stop supporting all of your proxy groups in the region. And the reason why I say Whitkoff must be lying here is just Rob, like, what Whitkoff has specialized in is negotiating these deals over the last year plus. And really, he started up right after November of 24, so really almost a year and a half of that. And to go, you're still presenting this as if it's a mystery, why around wouldn't capitulate? Hold on. I don't want to say capitulate.

but yeah that's really the only word I can think of capitulate right so like why is it a mystery look is it a mystery why any any government would say you're not allowed would would not agree to someone saying you're not allowed to have an energy program a completely legal legit energy program is that a mystery to anybody how about this how about the internet well let me just say this you go ahead Rob. The intercontinental ballistic missile demands. Just think about it like this, okay? Way back a month ago,

there were like some big protests in Iran, in fact, very violent riots, and then some big pro-regime demonstrations, but forget about that, because that doesn't fit with the narrative. But as soon as that was happening, as soon as there were uprisings against the regime, every hawk in America,

and the entire is really, government all went, now is the time you got to take them out because they are weak. This is, if we sense weakness, we're going to take out this regime. And then they, and then Whitkoff is going to tell us that he doesn't understand why they won't agree to completely disarm. Like, dude, we all know, I mean, this is such an obvious game. But what happened during the 12-day war, right, was that Israel was getting fucking touched up. And once their big play of threatening all the generals and their families, so they could

overthrow the regime, once that didn't work, Netanyahu was kind of caught with his pants down, and then eventually it was like, all right, well, maybe this isn't really working. And in fact, there were a lot of reports that over the, when he first, when the protests were going on, they're like, oh, shit, we don't have enough military hardware. They're very concerned about the fact that, like, once we attack Iran, Iran can attack us back. So now the deal is, you're You just have to agree to remove your ability to attack us back. Well, everybody knows what BB Netanyahu would do then. Because, like, if they get rid of those intercontinental ballistic missiles,

then Israel, they would be fine with that deal because then they don't even really need America's backup. Now, there might be other things they need, right? Like, they didn't have the bunker buster bombs that we dropped on Fordo. But essentially, if Iran can't touch Israel back, then Israel just, has open season to attack around whenever they want to. So the idea that, Wittkov, if you're telling me here that the president is curious about this, come on, dude, you've got to know the answer to this. It's just too ridiculous.

I'm sorry, Rob. Go ahead. What were you going to say? So firstly, I don't know. Maybe there's a possibility that this is all just posturing and maybe they got some plan that they're going to Maduro the Ayatola. And we're going to have some great sitcom of Maduro the Ayatola and the old head of of the cartels in prison together.

But here's what I'm hearing. And I actually don't think Whitkoff's lying care. I think that there are some smarter people around Donald Trump that have introduced these poison pills because they're actually looking for regime change. And I think Donald Trump has enough

gusto and bluster that he's of the belief of other people don't have autonomy. And if I said that someone's going to do something and I threaten them, they're going to acquiesce. And the idea that Donald Trump isn't I was in a way bluffing here and is completely surprised by the fact that Iran hasn't just rolled over.

That does not shock me. It does not shock me that Donald Trump believed that after the last strike, if he moved enough military gear in there, Iran would just go, all right, you know what? We don't want this action. What do you need from us? And you and I both understand enough about foreign politics, even though I barely studied it to go. a regime wants to remain in power. That's their main goal.

And so they're not going to just make it easier for them to attack down the line. They're interested in their own self-survival. And if anything, you're pushing them towards needing a nuclear warhead. But the idea that Trump doesn't believe in his own greatness enough that threats will just get people to acquiesce. I'm not actually surprised that Donald Trump might believe that. Yeah. I mean, okay. So to be clear, yes, I believe very much that Donald Trump,

that is his thinking because why aren't they just backing down? We're so much stronger and we keep threatening them. I just don't believe that Whitkoff doesn't know what's going on here. Yeah. And then I think it really speaks to, well, then what's the plan here? If it was Donald Trump's plan really, he's going to move the entire military over there. And, you know, Iran was just going to roll over. And if that was, hey, the genius, 4D chess guy.

And if that was his plan and that didn't work. So it sounds to me like Donald Trump doesn't have a great plan. and you are flirting with what might escalate into a full war. This sounds to me like it validates all of our criticisms of Donald Trump and the actions he's currently taking in Iran. Yeah. You know, I don't know if you saw today, but Turkey was threatening to invade the country

if the regime collapses. Oh, invade what to take over Iran? Well, not necessarily. I think their goal was that they were like, look like, I think essentially what they were saying. was that they were very concerned about the potential migrant crisis. Because they're going, hey, if you guys are saying here that your plan is to overthrow this regime from the skies, like you're not going to have a ground invasion, which nobody's really been talking about.

And I don't see any way that Donald Trump's going to invade the country. Something really big would have to happen there. But like, you're talking, I mean, if you're talking about a ground invasion of a round, you're talking about something many times more complicated and difficult than invading Iraq. And again, like I said, you're going in with the overwhelming majority of the Americans opposing this. And I just think there's no type, like, it's not like immediately after 9-11 when we're essentially coming out of the 1990s. They're just a different country. We have been hit on 9-11.

There was major political will to like, we got to go do something about this. There's just no political will right now to go start seeing our boys getting shoot up in, you know, fighting with insurgents in Iran. But I guess from Turkey's perspective, they're like, hey, listen, if you're saying you're just going to topple this government through bombing campaigns, and then you're in the situation where you don't militarily occupy the country, you're not really in a position to guide what comes next. If that's the thing, then we're going to go in there and make sure that the refugees aren't just flooding into our country. Now, I don't know exactly to what extent that's really going to

happen, but I do think that you've seen obviously like almost everybody in the region, with one notable exception, Rob, doesn't want to see this war. And of course, because whatever problems people have with the Iranian regime, which a lot of people in the region, certainly the Sunni states in the region are not fans of theirs, but they understand that toppling this government and essentially it seems like Rob is the thing. That's essentially the plan that they've got. Topple the government, and then we'll see. And even the topple the government, it's like, well, let's start bombing some government sites. Now, again, I don't know exactly. I mean, I don't think they're going to be able to pull off some shit like they did in Venezuela, but maybe they could locate the Ayatollah and kill

him with a drone strike or they could, you know, kill a whole bunch of the mullahs and whatever. If they, if they do that and then they take out the government, then what? Well, I don't know if you saw this, right, but Rubio, he already admitted that they don't. have a replacement like he essentially they he essentially acknowledged we know that the son the the the shaw's son doesn't have the juice like we know if we send him in there he'll just get killed so they're already admitting we don't really have anyone to put in next so if that does happen then it's a power vacuum and it's a scramble for power and there's like i had mentioned on on the show before i think it was uh um in the last election the the far right candidate who's like a few clicks to the right

of the current president who's right wing enough to be accepted by the Ayatollah, but the guy who's more right wing than him got like 20% of the vote. It's like, well, 20%, there's a nice insurgency for you, Rob. You know, it doesn't take any more than that. 20% of the country wants a more hard-lined right-wing theocratic government. So anyway, the country's in the region, they see this for what this is, and they go, yeah, we're pretty concerned about the possibility. Well, talk about one of the biggest national failures ever would be, I guess, if you took out the current Iranian regime only to have Turkey take over the region, that would not be a win.

Yeah, no, it certainly wouldn't. And I don't know that Turkey would actually, you know, I think this might be just a little bit of an empty threat. But regardless of that, this thing turning into another catastrophe is, well, it's going to destroy Donald Trump's presidency and his legacy. and I'll probably destroy anyone attached to the administration's ability to win national office in the immediate aftermath of this administration. I will say, I mean, more long-term big picture, if this thing really does go that way, which again, there's still all types of possibilities. Donald Trump could call the whole thing off tomorrow. He could bomb them a few times and then call the whole thing off. Like, there's possibilities here. But if it does turn into a regime change and they do, this regime does fall in.

it turns into some type of, you know, catastrophic chaos like that. To me, I mean, I think this is going to be remembered as Israel's war, undeniably Israel's, you know what I mean, getting the U.S. into a war and just getting us to commit another, you know, calamity just on their behalf. And that they don't, I mean, they just don't really seem to care about reputational damage. So, isn't it funny, Rob Toob? I was thinking about the other day because there's this like massive freak out right now on on Twitter. Like all the Hawks are just trying to take down Tucker Carlson.

They're all spazzing out about it. You know, it's like they all, they see the opportunity right now for the war and around. And so they're all trying their best to sell this war. And Tucker's the biggest voice who right wingers really love trying to get people to not be sold by this war. So they're freaking out on him. But I just think it's funny that like they. So like I said on the episode on the episode yesterday that they're all trying to spin it like Huckabee destroyed Tucker, which you're like, dude, come on man. Like, come on. Huckabee destroyed Tucker, really. And but then it's funny because like at the same time that we talk about, there's been a major theme on the show, right, Rob?

We talk about at all of their events, all they can ever talk about is how we're losing the narrative. And we're losing and losing and we're losing and we got to win it back and we're losing. But we have to win it back. And maybe we have to do that by, you know, whatever. Barry Weiss said we have to have the sexy, charismatic figures like Alan Dershowitz, or Netanyahu says we got to pay $7,000 a post, or we got to buy up CBS, or we got to buy up TikTok, or we got to do all this because we're losing, we're losing. We got to buy more bots on Twitter. But then they also try to pretend they're winning, but we're winning the argument.

I don't actually think that's what's happening. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Brunt workwear. Brunt sent me a pair of their work boots. They are phenomenal. I love them. I know Lewis was talking about it recently. He's been wearing his all over too.

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who are trying to sell the war. I saw Sam Harris popped back out. That's, you know, it's like, there's also weird, like, would people just reveal, like, what role they play in this whole thing? Like, Sam Harris, he's like, oh, I'm just like, I'm the atheist guy who has a meditation, app and I'm really into neuropsychology or whatever. But then anytime there's a war, I might have to just pop up to sell that war. That's just me.

Totally normal guy. Here, let's play that clip. Here's Sam Harris, thoughtfully breaking down in a way that no one else possibly can. Pure logic and rationality, Rob. I honestly think Iran is much less likely to blow back on us the way Iraq and Afghanistan did. I just think the majority of the people are in a different spot with their desperation to be rid of theocracy. It's a much more sophisticated culture that has been oppressed for now more than a generation.

You can't say that about Afghanistan, right? You can't even say that about Iraq, and Iraq was more sophisticated than Afghanistan. I do think it's a different situation. It's like if you're going to talk about the prospect of nation building is probably, ironically, this is probably a good opportunity that we can't possibly take, given how badly our experience was, how bad our experience was previously. But I just think it's worth assuming that the majority of the Iranian people want something like a secular democracy or something,

you know, something that would be recognizably secular and democratic. I honestly think Iran is. So there you have it. Now, you might notice in there. that Sam Harris does at least concede, which I guess we could take as a little bit of a benefit, that, you know, it's a real shame because we're probably not going to do nation building here. And it's a shame because this is the time that we really should do it. So that's what Sam Harris feels. That's the lessons he's learned by getting every single foreign

policy catastrophe wrong for 25 years, is that it's a real shame about those other wars I supported because this one would really work. That's really the shame. That's really the shame of it here, that there's just not enough political will to fucking invade the country with 250,000 troops and occupy the thing for 20 years. It's a real shame because that would be cheaper this time or something like that. Or no, no, no, no, it wouldn't. You know, did you notice, by the way, in there, Rob? Because I find this interesting how he really kind of, he gave something a way that really kind of undercut his point. He was like, you know, this is just a much more sophisticated country. You know, you can't compare it to Afghanistan or Iraq. Iraq, of course, was much more sophisticated.

than Afghanistan. Okay, so it's interesting. Iraq was much more sophisticated than Afghanistan. Well, that's certainly true. A lot more people died in Iraq. Iraq was, I think, at least for the, a double check on the numbers, but I think it was more expensive too.

But certainly a lot more people died in Iraq. So, like, by the way, it was much bloodier in the more sophisticated country. Hmm. So does that necessarily mean? it will be less bloody in a slightly more sophisticated than that country. You know what I'm saying? Like it's like it doesn't even actually follow at all.

No, the fact is that Iraq is certainly more sophisticated than Afghanistan, and that's actually part of the reason why there were so many more civilian casualties in Iraq, because Iraq has more cities. Or it has, I don't even know, it has more population density than Afghanistan has, which is actually the biggest, you know, issue when it comes to innocent people dying. Now, there was a whole study about that. I think the guy's name was Smith, too, who did it. I can't remember his name.

But if you Google it, you could find it. It's called the precision paradox where they were looking at, they looked at a few different areas, but I believe it was mostly in Syria, where Vladimir Putin would come in and, like, carpet bomb an area. and then we would come in and like, you know, use precision strikes. And then at the end, they'd count up the excess mortality, and it didn't make any difference. It did. And the only real factor that mattered was population density.

Because you start sitting here like, we're going to, no, don't. Because, you know, whatever people have this idea, like a precision strike, a drone strike, means like you take out one guy or something like that. That's not what you're talking about. You're talking about bombing a quarter of an apartment building. and people end up dying, the building ends up collapsing. When you have population density like that, you just have much higher numbers. But then this other thing that like, isn't it interesting?

And this is the other thing I want to, isn't it crazy, Rob? I guess I don't know how much you know about like Sam Harris's career. But isn't it funny that the guy who's essentially always his whole position has been to demonize Muslims and talk about how Muslims are, you know, the antithetical to liberal values and they can't be incorporated in that, the people actually want theocracy and blah, blah, blah, now all of a sudden, oh, no, no, no. Oh, no, the majority of Iranians

would probably want a secular state. Maybe. And like, I don't know. How exactly do you determine that? How exactly do you know? Just trust me, essentially Sam Harris wants to go off his gut that he thinks these people want freedom. But again, this is what they said to,

this is what they said about every theater the people want freedom the people hate saddam hussein they want freedom and it turns out a whole lot of them did hate saddam hussein but some of them for lots of different reasons some of them hated saddam hussein because he wasn't enough of an islamist some of them hated saddam hussein because he was a sunni oppressing the shites and they wanted to be a sheite oppressing the sunnis you know like just because people are against the regime doesn't mean that what it replaces it is going to be um some jeffersonian uh um um um Republic, but also even if there is, even if he's right and 90%, or something, I'm sorry, I shouldn't say 90%, even if he's right that a majority of the people in Iran want a secular

government, what is the size of that minority? Like what, you know, if you're talking about 20, 30, 40% of the country that wants, in Islamist theocracy, maybe even a more right-wing one than they have now, well, then, okay, you topple the government, there's probably going to be a struggle for power. And the question, you know, as we found out, at least when it comes to nation building, when it comes to the thing that Sam Harris is so upset that we can't get here, like a full military occupation and an effort to erect a new regime, as we found out, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and other countries have found out in other military occupations, it's not really, this isn't an election. It's not about do you have 51% of the population on your side. The question is, how violent is that minority willing to be? You know, because like, even if you have, let's say it's 90%, let's say you had 90% of the Iranian people,

We're on board with a military occupation from the United States of America. Well, Rob, what's 10% of 92 million? Almost 10 million? Okay, so that's almost 10 million people. Okay, of those 10 million people, these are the hardcore right-wing, you know, Shiite, you know, Mullah supporting Ayatollah lovers. Well, of those, of those say almost 10 million people, which by the way, this is a real low ball number here, Rob.

But that's still 10 million people. How many of them are willing to sit by while the great Satan overthrows their beloved Ayatollah, who, you know, Rob, if you understand, the Ayatollah is a pretty big figure in Shiite religion? And so, like, how many of them are willing to violently, you know, in the name of the Ayatollah fight back against this regime? That's the question that matters. That's the question that was overlooked in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in all of these theaters. And of course, it's the one Sam Harris is still overlooking again here. Because why not?

Yeah, well, I think we have too much debt to be engaging in projects of nation building. And our track record of success in nation building is so poor. I don't even think it helps the people of the regions when we engage in the activity. So I'm not really sure with the pitches for why, I mean, look at the founding fathers. I'm not really sure that we're supposed to be engaged in nation building. I think our flirting with nation building has essentially bankrupted our country and hasn't even resulted in successes for the people in the areas we've attempted it. And he doesn't even sound that confident in his own pitch.

He's mumbling along here. He's being very shy and weakish to go, well, maybe here it would work because they're a little more. So maybe this is a, he doesn't even have a coherent pitch on what clearly is unpitchable. This hasn't worked. It's bankrupting our country. We don't have the resources to facilitate it, and we don't even know that it will work. So it sounds like we shouldn't do it. I just can't.

It's unbelievable to me that, like, anybody just can get away with even talking like this now. Like, it's almost, it's as if, I don't know, Rob, it's like, it's as if the, like, let's just say you were like cliff jumping with like a few friends. and then you're like on like a big cliff and you go oh someone jump up but you can't really see like to the end of it and then a guy jumps off and there's no water there and he just dies and then that happens like again three more times in a row and then you go hey dude let's jump off this cliff and you go now I think I hear some water I got reason to believe that there's going to be water this time you know like even if sam harris is going to say I have I believe this is actually a better candidate it's like okay that's nice that you feel that way isn't the onus on you to really break that down like give me some really good detailed why you believe that this time and not

just this like well you know there were these catastrophes before and now nobody wants to do this stuff anymore it's a shame but like how does anybody not have that attitude how does anybody not have the attitude like it's like if you were I don't know like the brakes in your car had gone out three times on you and you're like I'm gonna go get back on the highway and you'd be like dude no no like did you go and have someone like a fucking certified mechanic check your goddamn brakes and tell you for sure they are working you got to have some reason more than just I don't know they're more sophisticated okay they're

more sophisticated I mean like I don't know be a country being sophisticated doesn't really mean anything in this regard and there's been And some of the, you know, the Nazis were maybe the most sophisticated country in the world was Germany at the time. So like, it's just all silliness. Sorry, go ahead. There's one guy who's honestly going to pitch the reason for the war. All right. All that clip.

Listen, when all else fails and when the arguments are sounding incoherent, you got to go to the smartest of them all. And Mr. President, if there's one regime we have to take out. Here's, let's go to Mark Levin. That's the next clip. The problem isn't negotiations. The problem isn't they won't agree to this or that, or we can get the best deal in world history. The problem is them. The West needs to understand what we're dealing with for 47 years. I don't know what it's going to take, but we need to comprehend what we're dealing with. That regime needs to be eliminated to save our children and grandkids. children from having to deal with. Oh.

Okay. So the two things that are, or I would say the one thing that is noteworthy about this is that, as you may have noticed there on the screen, Donald Trump shared this. He shared this clip. So that's where the president's at. You know, it's funny, Rob, because it seems like all of the all of the war hawks, all of the Israel firsters are, you know, as I said, they're very upset. Every one of their conferences, they're talking about how they're getting destroyed. Why is it? And then the argument that they're making is that Tucker and Candice and Megan Kelly and to a lesser extent, me, we're ruining everything.

We're ruining the midterms. we're ruining Trump's presidency. It's because we're being so divisive that blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. We're going to lose the midterms and the left's going to take back power. It's a very common argument. I'm sure all of you guys have heard it. We've addressed it several times on the show. And you're like, or maybe it's just that we've been having this big, huge, national argument over the last two years.

You know, there's been a goddamn huge debates in this country on, well, I mean, obviously there was on COVID and on Ukraine, but really over the last two years, the dominant political debate in this country has been over Israel, over U.S. support for Israel, over Israeli influence on the U.S. government, over Israel's destruction of Gaza, and over Israel's demands that we topple the government. in Iran. We've had this debate across the country. Obviously, there's, you know, figures on who you could think of on both sides of it. The Ben Shapiro's and the Mark Levins and the Lindsay Graham's on one side and broadly speaking, Tucker Carlson and Candice and some people like that myself on the more non-interventionist side. And this isn't just a debate on the right wing either. It's a debate on the left wing and, you know, all over the place, although it's pretty unanimous on the left. that they are critical of Israel. But the thing is that the Israel critic side

have just dominated this debate at every turn. And public opinion has been turned way in our favor on this issue. And Donald Trump insists constantly on siding with the losers of the issue. Like, he insists constantly on going, hey, you guys, you know how you guys all hate Lindsey Graham? I'm with him.

You know how Mark Levin, his youngest audience member, is 90? He's just literally the clown who gets ratioed on Twitter every time he opens his mouth. Well, I'm with him. This is why you're losing. You're the ones taking the unpopular position here. So don't go blaming us for pointing out that the correct position is the one we should take. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Fume. Fume is a longtime sponsor of this show, and I've always loved the product.

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That's T-R-Y-F-U-M dot com. Promo Code Problem to claim your free gift today. All right, let's get back into the show. Now, Rob, I also, I don't know if you had any other comments here, but there's something that I thought was very interesting here. Mark Levin, actually, I just want people to understand how weird even people conceptualize of these things and how the disconnect between reality.

Forget even what your view is on this issue. I mean, just like the reality of it. Mark Levin actually says at the end of this, we have to take out this regime now so that our children and grandchildren don't have to. Rob, Mark Levin is 70. It's his children and grandchildren who have to do it right now.

What do you mean if we don't do this? Our children and grandchildren are going to do this. Are you dropping bunker busters? Mark Levin? No, it's going to be your children and grandchildren. Let me correct myself. Your children and grandchildren's generation, probably not yours,

that are going to have to do this right now. But isn't that weird, Rob, that that's just still in his mind. That's how he thinks of it? That, like, if Donald Trump does it, then we did it. Then our generation did it. But you didn't. Your generation aren't the ones who are, staffed on the ships and the bases in the region. Your generation aren't the ones who are going to be

flying the fighter jets. Your generation is not going to be the one who's risking themselves. Right now, it's your kids and grandkids. And you don't seem to have a problem with your kids and grandkids generation fighting wars because you've been advocating it your entire older adult life. I mean, you're younger adult life too. But you've been advocating it. You're in your 50s and your 60s and in your 70s. Anyway, any thoughts on the great one, Rob? He's the one guy saying, we need regime change.

We cannot allow them to stay. And listen, you're my friend and I'm a bald Jew. So whatever it takes to not turn into that. I don't know what diet I have to be on. I'll keep you honest. I'll keep you honest. I'll be the first one.

If you start showing signs of early onset, Mark Levin. I'll be the first one. I'll be the first one to be like, Hey, Rob, dude, you got to go, you got to go chill out a little bit. Well, no, I mean, so there it is. I mean, look, the Hawks are pushing for regime change here. That's obviously what they want.

And the American people clearly don't want it. Donald Trump seems to be going along with that. So we'll see how much time this gets at a state of the union tonight. I'd imagine they've got to be looking at this. Like, if he's decided he's doing this, which all indications are, it's still very unpopular. He's got to try to sell that tonight, but good luck. I don't know how you're going to.

I'm sure there'll be some other stuff in the speech there. I'm sure a big part of the speech will be bragging about how great the economy is. Crime and fentanyls down. The economy is really great. The tariffs were working. Yeah, we'll be in for a lot of that. I'm going to have to, it does at this point, feels like a punishment to even have to watch. Yeah, I don't want to sit down and watch it, but I will likely live stream either on my website.

or maybe publicly with some other podcasters. And my guess is I'll last about 40 minutes and be like, you know what? I will wait for the clips tomorrow. Yeah. I hear you. I understand it. All right. Well, we're going to wrap on there.

I'll give a response to the State of the Union tomorrow. All right. Catch you guys then. Peace.