Pod Save the World - Did Israel Push Trump into War with Iran?

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Tommy and Ben discuss the ways in which the war in Iran seems to be spiraling out of control, from American service member deaths and devastating civilian casualties to Iranian drone strikes on embassies and the mounting global economic fallout. Meanwhile, the White House’s explanation for why the war started keeps getting more absurd. The guys unpack the claim that an impending Israeli strike somehow forced Trump’s hand, JD Vance’s reported push to “go big,” and the deep uncertainty around who might fill the leadership vacuum in Iran. Finally, they discuss the latest from Cuba and Lindsey Graham’s open call for regime change, and do a special deep dive on FBI Director Kash Patel’s extremely online girlfriend. Then, Ben speaks with Rep. Yassamin Ansari, who is Iranian-American, about the mixed emotions of the diaspora and what Congress can do about a war they weren’t consulted on.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.Preorder Ben’s book All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches and subscribe to his Substack here.

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That's an additional 20% off better plants and better growing at fastgrowingtrees.com using the promo. code world at checkout fastgrowing trees.com code world. Now is the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together. Use the code world to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben, Donald Trump has launched a brand new regime change war of choice in Iran that has engulfed the Middle East. Thank God the administration is finally taking this seriously and putting our best foot forward to explain that mission to the world. Let's watch. Good afternoon.

The 10,113 meeting of the Security Council is called to order. I wasn't ready for that. I was not mentally prepared for that. I don't know how I, like the strange mix of things happening inside me. Cassie? Oh, my. Bloded. Just embarrassment, anxiety.

It just triggers anxiety. Like actually, because everything is making me anxious right now. Yeah, they may be anxious. And she's not calming. You would think that that kind of, you know, Balkan accent would kind of calm us down. No, no, it didn't. That was, as you guys probably could tell Melania Trump, the first lady, who for some reason is presiding over a meeting of the UN Security Council. The New York Times pulled some key quotes from her speech.

So Ben, she said she was there to promote. These are her own words. Quote, peace or education, which, of course, this was just days after the U.S. or Israel bombed a school in Iran. quote, empathy for others, transcending geography, religion, race, gender, because nothing says empathy like Trump administration. I don't know. I guess this is just what they're doing at the UN these days. Can you imagine, I mean, maybe she's on a role from the blockbuster success of the

Moana documentary paid for by Jeff Bezos at the expense of the Washington Post. But can you imagine being like some diplomat who has to sit in the chair, you know? Worked your whole life for this. You worked your whole life to beat the United Nations. It used to matter so much. You probably envision being in the Security Council as like the pinnacle of your career. And now you're there to talk about like transcendental empathy with Lonnie Trump. Yeah, or just attack some random minority group or whatever the hell she's going up there.

I mean, trans people or something. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's pretty bad out there, people. That's the theme for today. We're going to talk through all the latest on Iran. We're going to start with some excerpts from Trump's first press conference since the war started on Saturday. The latest casualty numbers in the United.

the region. What we've learned about the stunning security failure that led to six U.S. service members being killed and the administration's total lack of planning to help people, or Americans, I mean, stuck in the crossfire sitting overseas. We'll explain how a comment from Marco Rubio has ignited a huge debate over the role Israel played in getting Trump to go to war, what role Vice President J.D. Vance played in the deliberations and then Trump's outreach to Kurdish leaders and why that has increased our fear of a civil war in Iran, big time. Finally, we're going to talk about the role of the Supreme Leader in Iran in the process to choose the next one. Then we'll update you on all things, Cuba, and end with some fun stuff about Pod Save the World.

Fan favorite, Cash Patel and his girlfriend. Need that update, please. Love it at the end there. Thank God. Little something. You did your interview. Yeah, I talked to Yasmin Ansari, who was with us a quick economy, obviously, a wonderful young member of Congress from Arizona, who's been a real progressive leader. She's also the only Iranian-American Democrat in Congress, so she has a very unique vantage point on this.

We talked about the information being provided to Congress or complete lack thereof and how Democrats are thinking about things and what their strategy is going forward. We talked about her kind of conflicting feelings about obviously being, you know, happy to see the demise of the Supreme Leader, Hamene, you know, her parents had to flee. Learron, but she has been, you know, strongly opposed to the war as illegal and unconstitutional. And frankly, the U.S. not, you know, imposing a government by Donald Trump is probably not the best solution here. So we kind of unpacked all that. So it's a pretty powerful conversation. It also kind of gives you the Congress view on things. She's really smart and young and thoughtful and, like, has a real connection to diaspora. And so it's an important interview. I'm glad you did it. Also, thanks everybody for watching, you know, this episode and all the

bonus episodes we've been doing. We're trying to do a lot of coverage of this war because it really, really matters. When you subscribe to Pod Save the World, it makes a big difference. It helps people find us on YouTube. It helps the show go up the charts on Apple Podcasts. And it means that listeners will hear from people who are smart and decent, like Yasmin and Sari, and not John Bolton or like whoever is getting booked over on Fox News. By the way, Fox News is all, it's like 2003. Oh, yeah. It is. It is. It's like playing up against. I have to say, and I'm not just saying this because, you know, we're now like fully partnered with MS. But CNN's been pretty, you know, their diversity of opinion seems to be like having Dave Petraeus and Brett McGurke on.

Like, it's not a lot of, you know, anti-war progressive voices popping up out there. So please do help us get this kind of information in front of people because, you know, we're seeing kind of like an American media just not really meet this moment. Not meet the moment at all. It feels like 2003 all over again. I don't know if you caught. There was like someone tweeted out the list of guests on where the CBS News. Sunday show post Barry Weiss and it was like Oh my gosh, yes. Six war supporters, zero

opponents. Yeah. What are we doing here? Nothing good. Learning nothing. Learning nothing. Okay, Ben. So four days after launching this reckless, stupid war of choice with Iran, President Trump finally took questions from the media. Let's watch an excerpt. This is him sitting with Friedrich Mertz, the

Chancellor of Germany. If Israel forced your hand to launch the strikes against Iran, did that he off the whole United States into this war? I might have forced their hands. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. Mr. President, what's the worst case scenario that you have planned for in Iran?

I guess the worst case would be we do this, and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst you go through this, and then in five years you're really realize you put somebody in who was no better. Most of the people we had in mind are dead. So, you know, we had some in mind from that group that is dead.

And now we have another group. They may be dead also based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty sure we're not going to know anybody. What about Crown Perrin's Rosa Paula B? Is he an option at all in your mind? I guess he is some people like them. And we haven't been thinking about too much about that.

It would seem to me that somebody from within might maybe would be more appropriate. I've said that. Some of the European, like Spain has been terrible. In fact, I told Scott to cut off all dealings with Spain. By the way, we have massive amounts of ammunition, but we gave away a lot of high end, but we have plenty, but we have unlimited middle and upper ammunition, which is really what we're using in this war. and we have really an unlimited supply.

I guess we're more with Spain now. So it does seem like that the worst case scenario kind of occurred to him for the first time in the moment there. It doesn't give me a lot of hope in their day after planning if Israel keeps killing the people Trump thought might take over in Iran. He's also lying about the unlimited ammunition. Like there's tons of reporting that we're running low on interceptor missiles and T. Lambs and others.

Ben, let's carve off the Israel piece of this in a minute and get to that with the Rubio quote. What were your takeaways from this little mini press conference besides what Rezapalavi, just getting crushed there? Well, he just keeps reinforcing the extent to which they have absolutely no plan or even expectation of what's going to happen inside of Iran, you know? So one possibility, which I always thought was insane, and we've said this repeatedly, was this Rezapahlavi, you know, idea that basically the diaspora goes back and helps

run a transition. well, you know, he just got Maria Machadoed by Trump. I mean, the same way that he'd dismissed her, he dismissed Pahlavi. Frankly, she had a lot more of a democratic claim on being in Venezuela, but put that aside. Then, you know, I actually, that's not even the worst case scenario. That's actually not in a weird way, like just someone who's as bad. Status quo. He's not even contemplating, and we'll get to this with the arming, you know, separatist.

He's not even contemplating truly seems to not. understand that this could. I'm not saying it will, but this could become an Iraq's level civil war that kills hundreds of thousands of people and is regional to millions of millions of refugees. Like, that's something that is possible.

And he just doesn't seem to at all be concerned about that or even kind of aware of that possibility. He also seems to not feel, like when we talked about this a little bit yesterday, there's not weight on his shoulders. Six Americans are dead,

that global economy's, like, taking huge hits. There's all this uncertainty, and he's just like, yeah, whatever. He's kind of like low-key in it. Like, it is weird. I'm sort of up two minds of this. Like, his tone seems weird and excessively chill there, given the stakes of what he's just started, like his entire presidency is at stake.

But also he did hide from the media for like three days, which he never does, especially in big moments. So it does seem like maybe they were worried about going out. Yeah, that's true. And, you know, he kind of had to go out with Mertz in town. So I don't know. There's just no. clarity or confidence of what the hell. They cannot, and this will lead into Ruby, they can't agree

on why they're at war. They can't agree on what they're at war to do. They can't agree on how long the war is going to last. This is truly profoundly unnerving. I mean, it's unnerving enough when the Trump administration is like that about some trade dispute. This is about a major war they just started with one of the larger countries in the world in the middle of the Middle East. And they literally can't stay on a message over the course of a day. And the other side is still shooting back. So a few just sort of major updates to quickly tick through. So on Tuesday, the Israeli Air Force bombed a meeting of Iran's so-called counsel of experts,

it's the 88 member council that is reportedly voting on who will take over the Supreme Leader's place. You would think that many experts in one place would know not to, like, gather in big groups, but here we are. We're going to get to the Supreme Leader Succession process later in a show, but it seems as safe to say this will delay it and quite possibly could lead to the kind of chaos scenario you're talking about there if Iran has never like has an opportunity to figure out leadership structure going forward. Iranian state media now says that 175 people, most of them children, were killed by the U.S. or Israel in a strike that hit a girl school. As a general matter,

I'm obviously a little skeptical of Iranian state media as a source, but the images and the videos from the strike are all over social media. The New York Times and much of outlisted visual investigations. They confirmed this was a mass casualty incident of kids. And the school itself was adjacent to an IRGC naval base. You can understand how it happened, but it is horrific. The Iranian Red Crescent says the Iranian death toll from the war is now up to 787 people. 40 people are dead in Lebanon, 12 in Israel, three in the UAE, two in Iraq, two in Iraq, and one in only. on. The death toll for U.S. service members is up to six, many more wounded. So these soldiers were

all killed by an Iranian drone that struck a base in Kuwait. But according to CNN, these soldiers were working in a makeshift operation center that was described as a, quote, triple wide trailer with office space inside. So this drone hit with no warning, no siren, nothing to alert these folks to take cover. And Ben, the fact that, like U.S. service members were working in conditions like that, like in the line of fire is just indefensible in my view. And also we should note that Pete Heggseth on Monday lied and said the facility they were at was fortified. It was a fucking trailer. Yeah. Like it's crazy. Well, let's just focus on Pete Heg Seth and how completely in over his head he is. First of all, in his effort to project his, you know, bottomless need to assert his masculinity,

you know, he keeps saying things like, no more rules of engagement for wusses or something. And again, that's how you get schools blown up, right? Like, if we're going to have a multi-week bombing campaign, maybe, you know, periodically over years in Iran, the reason you have rules of engagement is to not kill thousands of civilians. So, fuck you, Pete, heck, Seth. Like, just because you need to show off for people, because, you know, I don't know what happened to you in high school, but put that aside. Then, yeah, the fortified comment, these were not, even though we've already fought, you know, this is our, you know, not our first. war with Iran in the Trump administration, you would think that they'd have plans. They had better plans to have civilians go to shelters in Israel than they seem to have for some

of the guys on these bases, even though we knew they were going to be targets. But the fortified comment, too, is so chilling, Tommy, because he's going to lie to us over and over and over and again. He doesn't care if it's just an outright lie. And we're going to be looking to this man to tell us about U.S. about the cost of the war, about the progress of the war, and you just know that he's just going to, he'll just say whatever he feels like he needs to say, you know?

And so that's, it's both horrible that they didn't, you know, secure our troops as well as they should have. But it's also harrowing that just kind of reinforces that, you know, we can't trust anything. I mean, I know the Pentagon's had some, you know, moments in the past, but this is a whole new ball. This is worse. Also, the fighting is escalated between Hezbollah and Israel and southern Lebanon, including in Beirut.

Israel-Kats, the Israeli defense minister, says the IDF is going to seize more territory in Lebanon to deal with that threat. So another coming attraction. Let me just stop there. Because, again, one of the things you hear more and more of is that Israel is creating less chaos and there's going to be territorial expansion. Yeah. And by that, it's the West Bank. It's southern Lebanon and it's southern Syria. So people, you know, can call me names for pointing this out.

I'm just saying, watch this. Like, let's watch whether they try to take action. actual physical territory in Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank while this war is. And hold it. And then U.S. embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been shut down. The U.S. embassy in Riyadh was hit by an Iranian drone on Monday. The American consulate in Dubai was hit by a drone on Tuesday. It does make you worry that Iran might have found a hole in the air defenses because that's pretty late in the game for that to start getting more and more effective. State has also evacuated non-essential staff and their families from six countries in the Middle

East and the State Department has advised Americans to immediately depart 14 Middle Eastern countries, but they are providing them no support. Here's Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressing Americans stranded abroad earlier on Tuesday. Here's the message I want to deliver Americans who are in the Middle East in need of assistance. It is very important. And I ask this of the networks as well. It is important for you to please put both the website and the phone numbers on your screens because we need people. We need to know where you are. We need to know. We need to have contact information. for Americans that need assistance.

So the plan is to beg the media to put a number up on the screen. When Trump was asking, why wasn't there an evacuation plan? Trump said, well, because it happened all very quickly, we thought, and I thought maybe more so than most. I could ask Marco, but I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked. It's like gibberish from there. So I don't know, Ben, like these guys, like hypocrisy is what it is at this point, but these

guys spent years demagoguing Benghazi. They've like right-wing action porn movies about Benghazi because they love reliving it. And now we've got like embassy. I mean, this has shut down American diplomacy across the entire region. Like people can't go to work because the embassies and consuls are getting bombed. There are thousands upon thousands of people stranded in the region and the State Department can't provide the many services. Because the State Department has been fucking broken and doged by them and has run by a guy. who's also the National Archivist

and National Security Advisor of the United States. I think you lost the archivist job. Oh, shit. Sorry. Well, I'm sorry, Marco. But the point is it, like, when you doge agencies,

they can't perform basic services like helping Americans who are stuck in a war zone because your idiot president started a war. Yeah, Marco's like, we need the fake news media to report this. Delta.com.

That's how you're getting home. That's your plan. United.com. With all the airports shut down. I mean, this is a degree of incompetence that actually matter. people have family. I know plenty of people who've got family stuck in places like Dubai or wherever people, you know, who are just terrified. And the U.S. government is doing nothing for them.

And the U.S. government is the reason they're terrified. It's because the U.S. started a war while they were there without an evacuation plan. And also in Pakistan, I think 22 people have been killed in protests over the country. Thousands came out in support of the Iranian regime. They've stormed American embassies and consulates and all parts across the country. So it's very scary. This is something We went through during the Europe spring. I mean, a lot of these... This could get worse. These diplomatic facilities in Pakistan in particular are hairy.

Yeah. That's a hairy post. It's also been... It's very hard to quantify the cost of these wars in real-time financially, but a few numbers to try to start that process. So there was a report put out by the Andaloo News Agency that estimated that just in the first day, Operation Epic Fury, cost $779 million. So they did this by trying to total up the cost of the weapons that were dropping on places

or the weapons systems where they cost to operate. For example, the USS Gerald Ford costs about $6.5 million per day to operate. Oil prices, as of this recording, are up about 10% since last Friday. There's obviously a lot. It is still nothing compared to what will happen if Ron actually closes the Strait of Hermuz.

Along those lines, Trump posted this weird message saying he directed the U.S. government to provide political risk insurance for all maritime trade through the person. Oh, yeah, really eye on the ball. If your mom is stuck in the Middle East, you're fucked, but, you know, let's get some political risk insurance to some hedge fund guy that has a trade on some energy.

Yeah. Well, he also said the U.S. will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Can you imagine the cost of escorting every tanker through the Strait of Hormuz? And then again, as we mentioned yesterday, like this has just been hugely disruptive to commerce all across the Middle East, especially places like Dubai. Amazon said that three of its facilities in the UAE and Bahrain have been damaged by drone attacks. that has messed with AWS data centers, banks and the Emirates are having to work around low staffing. So, like, the economic fallout is just beginning. Oh, it's going to be billions upon billions and billions of dollars. And look, again, the Gulf is going to change their security paradigm.

There's no way that, I mean, they won't do it tomorrow. But this kind of reliance on the United States to be the shield around us so that we can have our prosperous, secure existence. has been shattered by this war. The lack of regard that the United States has for these countries, that it's like, oh, we'll start the war, you're going to get bombed. We're going to prioritize missile defense for Israel, not you. I mean... There's reports that Qatar and the UAE are like, you know, have a week or less...

Dangerously out, yeah. ...worth of interceptor missiles. And then what? What's the plan? What's... I mean, I do just want to... The pod started, you know, we've had highs and lows. Like, I'm, like, hello, people who voted for Donald Trump. Like, is this what the fuck you wanted?

I mean, or go find something. This is insane what is happening. Put your phone on speaker, run down the street, find someone in a red hat, and play this part. This is just insane what is happening. And it's insane that, like, anyone would even try to kind of sanewash this of like, well, we took out the Supreme Leader. Like, what is going on here, people? Did you, I saw Tom Cotton on TV saying that Iran has posed an imminent risk to the United States for 47 years. That's where we're at.

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if you just want a clean, fresh nightcard. So protect your teeth with Remy by using the Code World to get 50% off your new nightcard. That's 50% off at shop, remi.com slash world with code world. Thank you, Remy, for sponsoring this episode. Well, let's get into this sort of question of how this war started. So since you and I talked yesterday, this clip of Secretary of State Marco Rubio talking about why the U.S. went to war with Iran has exploded onto the internet. There was like 10 tweets by me last night.

Yeah. So let's watch Rubia. Then let's sort of unpack it and talk about it. I don't understand what the confusion is. Let me explain it to you. And I'll do it once again as clearly as possible. Perhaps you'll report it that way. There's two reasons why now.

The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. If we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.

And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed. And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that indeed. All right. So I'm trying to unpack this in the kind of most charitable, like measured way I can because I know this is like a very sensitive piece of this conversation. But so what Rubio is trying to claim there is that the U.S. new Israel was going to target Iran, which would lead to a retaliation by the Iranians against U.S. bases in the region. Therefore, the U.S. had to strike Iran first as a preemptive defensive

effort, apparently telling that Njahou not to start a war was not an option, right? So this line of spin from Rubio evolved from an even more ridiculous claim that we saw over the weekend that was made during a White House briefing call for reporters where an official said the war started because there was an imminent threat of a preemptive Iranian attack on U.S. bases in the Middle East that would have led to mass casualties. Rubio is clarifying that that imminent threat was actually the Iranian response to an Israeli. The Israeli struck first, right? Somehow the U.S. and Israel are never the aggressor in these situations. Rubio's quote is being widely taken as confirmation that the U.S. went to war because of Israel. This is not like a far left thing. It's not a far right thing.

It is everywhere. And of course, you know, the usual suspects are basically telling people who take Rubio's words at face value that that makes you an anti-Semite. But I think we should just look at the totality of the evidence. So there's that quote we played from Rubio. Tom Cotton said something nearly identical on Fox. Tom Cotton said, Israel faced an existential risk and they were prepared to strike Iran alone. If that happened, Iran was very likely to target our troops. That may address the question of why now.

So Cotton has definitely got the talking points there. The New York Times said that in February, Netanyahu spent three hours persuading Trump to go to war in like whatever, eighth visit to the Oval Office since Trump's took office. And then, as we mentioned yesterday, Netanyahu put out a statement after the war started bragging about how he's been waiting for this moment for 40 years and a partner like Donald Trump. So, Ben, as I've said before, like, I think there's... Oh, you forgot Mike Johnson. What did Mike Johnson say? Israel was determined to act with us or without us. So, ergo, we had to join because we would have gotten drawn on. So Mike Johnson, speaker at us also said the same thing

as Ruby on Kotter. Got it. Good addition. Thank you. So again, like I'm trying to be charitable here. Like I've said before, I still believe that... I'm not. that I think this is about Trump's ego, right? He loves the adulation. He loves to be told Lindsay Graham, this, you know, fluffing him, like, whatever, telling him he's a historic figure. For the people not watching on YouTube, there's a little visual. Sorry.

Sorry, those are doing the six-seven thing on his balls. But I do think, like, it is two reasons in my mind. Ego and then, like, the pressure from Netanyahu. Because Rubio conceded, like the answer to why did this start on Saturday? It's because we knew the Israelis were going to act. And like bigger picture, if you say, well, there's still this threat from the Iranians, I just do think you have to be honest that there is no imminent nuclear threat. It's not one that's months or even over a year away, right?

It's buried under the ground. There is no imminent threat to the U.S. from Iran's ballistic missiles. That is like a 2035 timeline, including to the Defense Intelligence Agency. And the protesters Trump said that he was going to save with a military strike are all dead. And I've been dead for a while now. as are the three people he wanted to lead Iran apparently. Right, and then three after them and three after them. So, like, even this new spin that Iran could produce so many conventional weapons

that they created a conventional umbrella to protect their nuclear program, Rubio says in that same press event that they were a year away from that threshold. So again, like, I'm trying to be charitable. I get the sensitivity. But, like, this war started on Saturday because the Israelis wanted it to. Yes. How do you argue that? Who else supported it, too?

I mean, we've talked about this. You cannot, like, Lindsay Graham and the Israeli government are kind of some of the only individuals like, you know, I don't know, John Bolton. Do you buy this report? Do you see the Washington Post said that Mohammed bin Salman was calling to lobby to go to war? I do not buy that report. It's only they've reported it. I did not hear that.

I've been talking to people in the Gulf from before. this war, Egypt was against this publicly and they don't really do things without checking with the Saudis first. That felt like somebody else wanting to kind of spread this around, right? And the Saudis denied it immediately and pretty vocally too. Anyone who listens to this podcast knows, I'm not like some big fan of the Saudis. But if you look at what Saudi Arabia has done in the last few years, Mahmama bin Salman did a rapprochement with the Iranian government. He wanted stability. Like, why would he do a rapprochement with them, you know, brokered by China and then turn

around and be like, you know what I want? I want to like topple regime with no plan for what comes after and have my, you know, the veneer of security that I've created in this country shattered by Iranian drones and have Aramco, Saudi Aramco fields, Oafields on fire. And no, I just don't believe that. So I'm not saying, I'm not blaming Israel entirely at all. This is Donald Trump's fault. Nor is it absolving Iran of the bullshit they do. Yeah. But like, and actually I want to be very clear about this. Because when he said this yesterday, at first, my reaction was, I can't believe he said that. It's like the classic gaff where you say the truth.

Like everybody else has been spinning and Rubio is actually telling the truth. And then I thought they'd clean it up, which they did today. But yesterday, they tweeted out Rubio's comment from the White House rapid response account. Did you see that? No. Like, this was not something they were like hiding. It just, it's what everybody has been seeing. Like, why is Bibi Nanyahu come to visit Donald Trump seven times, right?

He, the last time, the 12-day war, he got Trump into that one. But Israel actually started bombing and then was like, come along, guys. Like, you better get involved here, you know? So it's been very evident that Israel wants us. They have not concealed the fact that they want to do it. And, like, the thing that is so maddening is that Trump can say, know. Like absent from any of these comments by tough guys like Tom Cotton and Mark Rubio is the notion that if BB comes to Trump or any president of United States, because

he came to Obama, wanted to bomb Iran, I'm sure he came to Biden, wanted him to bomb Iran. Obama said no. Biden said no. Like George W. Bush said no to them. And this guy started the Iraq war. And Donald Trump can say no. I'm not going to do this. No, by the way, I'm not going to support you doing it either right now because it puts our people at risk. That is an option that is available to them that has been taken by every U.S. president not named Donald Trump in the 21st century. And so it's not some fate accompli. And I just want to say, like, if you want to call us all anti-Semites for just pointing out the reality that this is at least a part of what happened, it's not, again, not the whole reason,

then that term means nothing anymore. Like, it's so dangerous to do that because, like, if people like, I'm watching this and I've got a video of the prime minister of Israel saying he's wanted to do this for four years and finally got Donald Trump to do it. And then if I like repeat those words out loud, I get called an anti-Semite, then the term means nothing. And also you should read the Israeli press and how critical they are. Yeah, I want things and like you realize how silly is. Yes, like, I get. I'm aware of the sensitivity. It matters. I get it. But like just the most cynical people in Washington, D.C. are lobbying this attack and calling people anti-Semites when you just point out what Rubio said. And I think, Look, I think what Rubio said was the truth on some level. Certainly is the truth about the timing, right? And also is going to do extraordinary and lasting damage to support for Israel within the Magal world. Because now it is going to be taken as an article of faith that we are at war with Iran because of Israel and everything the bad that comes after will be tagged with Iran. Also, one other thing I want to run by you, Ben.

So I have a really good friend who occasionally will I geek out. and like Ford articles me like, what do you think of this? So he forwarded me this piece from the free press. I want to read you a little bit that's sort of like talking about what the free press is arguing, this person in the free press, this op-ed, is the real reason for the war? These are all quotes. America is in this fight because of China. Specifically, it is about dismantling the most significant Chinese forward-based outside of East Asia.

Then it goes on to talk about like Chinese weapons sales to Iran, like Iranian adoption of Chinese technology. That is like a little skeptical. The picture that emerges from all of this is of a Chinese forward base, a lynch pin of the country's naval architecture, cyber efforts, and economic belt and road influence program every element of the Chinese power projection and empire building, positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate advanced American defenses and kill American sailors and embedded in a strategic architecture whose explicit purpose is to constrain American military freedom in any future conflict over Taiwan. My friend was like,

what do you think of this article? And I was like, first blush, like, if this war was about China, I think the administration would say that because that would be like the most popular thing you could probably say politically like war with Iran to take out the Chinese like that would be a winner. This criticism of Iran for buying Chinese tech is probably because we've sanctioned to them

and refused. Is they going to buy our tech? Like what? And then finally, this idea that this is like a forward operator. Like I think if anything this war with Iran is weakening our ability to fight a war with China pretty substantial.

as we've talked about with the dwindling supply of Tomahawk missiles and others. But I wanted to get your blind reaction to this article and where this is coming from. Literally, I'd never heard this argument before. I was going to say, first of all, like, I've had to follow this Iran issue as of you as close as anything else in my life, you know, for the last 12 years. And I've never heard that argument made. Like, I mean, it's bonkers. I mean, the two things I say about it are, number one, this war is helping China immeasurably, right?

Because it's just further making the United States seem chaotic and an aggressor and a source of instability in the world to every other country. You know, as we talked about, some of these Europeans and like Mark Carney are seemingly unable to find a voice on this thing. But let's just take the actual swing regions of the world, the global south. like I guarantee you that this war is terrifying them and is going to drive them closer to China. And then also the idea that the Chinese were going to like project power through Iran, it's just not actually the people that are super apocalyptic about the spreading influence of China, they focus more on this kind of belt road through the Indian Ocean down to Africa and then into Latin America. I could actually, I heard a lot more arguments that Chinese presence and influence and

influence in Venezuela was dangerous than this. Do they sell, do they buy a bunch of oil from Iran? Yeah. Do they sell their tech there? Yeah, because they're sanctioned. Iran's not going to sell it anywhere else. But no, I think that's a garbage rationale. Very surprising article. The other like really interesting political story about the deliberations around going to war with Iran is the role J.D. Vance played. So J.D. Vance is the vice president. He famously wrote an op-ed with the headline, Trump's best foreign policy, not starting any wars. That one aged well. But the New York Times and now several other outlets have reported that Vance actually pushed

Trump to start a bigger war with Iran. So remember, there were reports that Trump might order like a limited strike to pressure the Iranians into making a deal. Vance reportedly convinced Trump to go, quote, go big and go fast. So that was remarkable to me, Ben. I mean, it should not surprise anyone that J.D. Vance is completely full of shit and he's, you know, kind of like upended all his beliefs. But I do think politically, like, he's, like, he's.

know, owns whatever disaster comes out of this just as much as Trump, as is Marco Rubio. And like, I don't know, like, if things in Iran go the way that they think they're going to go, it does open up a pretty big lane for a, like, actually anti-war, anti-interventionist, MAGA voice in 2028. I don't know who that would be. It could be Thomas Massey or somebody. Could be Tucker Carlson. It could be Tucker Carlson, actually.

Yes. Now, yeah, because the point, the one thing I'd say about this is that you saw the classic, this is a great report. someone close to the vice president told us that he was against this but then said go big but he won't comment but it was such a clearly sanctioned leak

you know you can tell these things yeah it was everywhere same language here's the thing he can precisely because he cannot publicly say anything bad about Trump or else he's going to be kneecapped you can leak all he want

he's going to own this just as much as Trump and the same is true of Rubio because you know up to to the moment that the next Republican nominee is nominated, they have to kiss Trump's ass and can't say that Trump did anything wrong. It's not like he can go out and say, like, I was against this and this is a mistake. Like Donald Trump would, you know, eviscerate him if he does that. So he owns this as he should. And the far right of the Republican Party is in revolt. It's not just Tucker Carlson, who is apoplectic

over the war. Nick Fuentes is going nuts, calling Trump a joke. Megan Kelly has been pretty critical. A lot of like kind of MAGA influencer types. Like there is a very early body of concern about what's happening in Iran that you did not see around Venezuela, or at least not to this extent. No, no. And it's real because it's it's tapping into something that the maga voters, like we've talked about the fact that they're anti-war. But some of them are veterans who fought in multiple tours and felt completely betrayed by their government. right and and and so it's emotional too it's not just you know this is not just like a and they're a checklist of their right to be pissed they're a lot to uh there's been a lot of tic talk stories about how the war came together just for for non nerds a tic talk story is kind of like when the white house press

office brings you in and they do like a behind the scenes blow by below of how something happened a couple little anecdotes from the financial times version that i just jumped out of me so the ft says that the traffic cameras in tehran got hacked by the masad and those images are being transmitted to israel and that's how they were tracking government leaders, including knowing that the Supreme Leader was going to be like at that office when they bombed it at the time. So it's sort of interesting to learn. They also apparently were able to disable cell phone towers in the area, so no one could call in a warning.

And then, interestingly, then, so the F.T said the Israelis knew of Hamine's movements via the Sagan channel, but the CIA had a human source. So interesting, if true, also, you know, maybe don't leak that while the war is in like day four guys. But, you know. That's the thing I felt, I have to say, look, it's interesting. You know, what a surprise. The Mossad and the CIA have good intelligence. But I mean, we were, like, chuckling about the fact that the CIA was doing this giant victory lap over identifying the location of Hamenei in his office.

But it points to, like, a bigger point. Like, Trump clearly, like, loves this initial round of, you know, the way that. the American media chooses to cover wars, which is, like, I find these stories grotesque to tell you the truth. And I'm not criticizing the journalists. Like, they, like, you know, you have to, I'm kind of criticizing that the people that went out

to do these TikToks, you know? Like, it's two guys that did some TikToks back of the day. I know, but like, I don't know that, but not like this. I mean, honestly, like, we did on like bin Laden operation. Afghanistan. But a lot of it was,

just like, look, the TikTok story is a first draft of history. It's trying to explain your thinking how you came to an argument. I agree with you that there is a version of it that is like preening and false heroism and I don't know. I guess what I'm getting at is that here's what I'm trying to say. So you're, I'll mend what I say. The TikTok stories are a part of like just how you tell a story out of a communications office.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that they seem to put more thought into the TikTok stories than about their strategy. Oh, absolutely. That's the thing that pisses me off, is they have the time to go out and be like, here are the intricate details of how we, like, turned off traffic lights and had a human source and found the Supreme Leader and killed them. And then if you ask that same spokesperson,

what is the objective of this military operation? They can't answer the question. And so, like, Trump loves this part of the war. You know, it seems like. He's taken 19 calls from random reporters, like, including, like, some, Rachel Bade's substack. He's so far down the call sheet.

It seems like he doesn't get that this isn't working out. It's not helping him. He's not helping him. He's putting out competing messages. He sounds incoherent all over the place. They've completely abandoned the like rise up, you know, the regime change message. Although let's get to that. So we've talked about how like we're concerned that this could, you know, spill into a civil war,

that Iran could split that you could see like ethnic or sectarian fighting. You've mentioned the Baluk separatists who are Sunni Muslims. primarily live on the border of Pakistan and have a separatist kind of like violent wing. Then there's about 10% of the Iranian population is Kurdish, I believe. According to Axios, Trump called several Kurdish leaders in Iraq either on Sunday or Monday. The Wall Street Journal confirmed that reporting and then said that Trump is willing to provide support to groups in Iran who are willing to take up arms against the Iranian regime. I assume that means weapons or else that support is not worth anything.

And then an Israeli outlet called Israel Hayom, which is owned by Miriam Adelson, ran a piece with the headline, quote, The American Israeli plan, chaos will push for a coup against revolutionary guards. So it seems like the Trump administration and the Netanyahu gang, they're not just like kind of unconcerned about civil war in Iran, but they might be actively contributing to it starting by supporting these groups like the Kurds. And then again, like, so what they're asking is these little ethnic minority groups to go to battle against the IRGC, which is, according to the FD, about 190,000 strong, and they're heavily armed. They have their own intelligence component. They have their own Navy. They have their own Air Force. They have their own economic interests.

They have their own relationship with terror groups like Hezbollah. And then you have the Basij Militia, which is a civilian paramilitary force that ranges from like hundreds of thousands of members in size to over a million. And depending on which analyst you believe, you know, it's like, they can look they can they're controlled by the irgc but sort of more loosely and so it's just it's hard to think of um a worse scenario for average iranian civilians than like this faction of courage trying to do battle with the ircc and everybody else is just stuck in the middle this is the single worst possible idea that you could pursue and i really mean that and that like i'm we're going to be wrong about some things we predict nobody knows everything that's going to happen i do know that this is a bad

idea. You have, you know, like Persian, obviously Persian is the biggest group in Iran, but you have significant ethnic minorities. The Kurds have longstanding ties to Israel, and there have been plenty of reports that the Israelis have used Kurds for, you know, certain operations inside of Iran in the past. In the Balukistan separatists, that's a real separatist movement that has clashed violently with Iranian security forces and that crosses the border into Pakistan. In the same, same way. That the Kurds. That the Kurds crossed the border into Iraq.

And so what you could get is a situation. If you are arming Kurdish and then potentially Baluk separatists, you are not just causing a potential civil war like in Lebanon or in Syria or in Iraq where it became a sectarian conflict. And you know how violent those can get. You are potentially making it a regional sectarian war where all the sudden the Iraqis and the Turks are like, do we have to go back into northern Iraq to. fight the Kurds in this country, and then Pakistan comes in to fight the Baluk separatists,

and then suddenly what, Pakistan and Turkey are involved in the Iran's civil war. This is a nightmare scenario, and it's not the way to do this. Yeah, it's, I could not believe when I read that. Why is Donald Trump calling Kurdish leaders Iran? It's crazy. But unless the strategy is chaos. And again, like the cynical view of the Israeli strategy is make it violent chaos, then we have regional hegemony because everybody else is kind of consumed with their own problem.

as in Lebanon. Ben, before we take a break, just two great ways to support progressive independent media. First of all, everyone should subscribe to your substack. Yes. Tell them where to find it. I will be, and I'll be releasing a new one tonight about Iran. So please check me out on substack. Notes on the stories we tell is the name of the substack, but you can just look up Ben Rhodes on subsist. You are prolific. You're also publishing stuff on the New York Times. I have a New York Times piece that came out yesterday too.

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Right now, my listeners can get 50% off their new SimplySafe system at SimplySafe.com slash crooked world. That's Simplysave.com slash crooked world. There's no safe like Simply Safe. All right, Ben, so the Supreme Leader is dead. As we mentioned at the top, a Tuesday, the Israelis bombed the meeting where there are supposed to be a vote to replace them. So there might be a leadership vacuum for a bit. Although as we were recording, there's a bunch of, like, people are tweeting about one report.

There's reports about the Supreme Leader's son being named Supreme Leader, Hamé's son being named Supreme Leader, which is something that kind of one of the likely scenarios, because the perception for a long time with Chamey was trying to kind of grease the skids for his son, who's a hardliner, who's very close to the RGC, so this would not be a reformist guy. But who knows, he could have been killed in that strike. or we just don't know. It's not confirmed yet. But if he is the person, just that is a reinforcement of a

hard line. And he'll obviously be targeted for assassination too. Yeah. And I think already was targeted for assassination by Israelis. So let's talk for a minute about who Iatoa Hamina was in the process to pick his replacement. So Hamine was 86, as we've said, he had been in power for almost 37 years, but his legacy went back to 1979 in the Islamic Revolution because he came to power in 89, but it had served two terms as Iran's president. So what comes next will be only the second leadership change in Iran's post-revolution history, which is pretty incredible if you think about it. How many was a truly awful person, and I think by every conceivable measure, a failure as a leader.

I mean, he wasted billions of dollars on a nuclear program that never got him a nuke. He wasted billions of dollars supporting proxy forces like Hezbollah that did not keep him or his country safe. And I think the economist kind of succinctly put it when they said he was, is the man who, quote, kept Iranians isolated from the world for more than three decades, who ruined their economy, and who, when they dared to speak out against his misrule, ordered them slaughtered by the thousands. Well said. But in Iran's system, the Supreme Leader is everything. You're a representative from God, the commander of the armed forces, the final decider in politics. So the next Supreme Leader will be chosen by a group called the Assembly of

Experts. That is that group of 88 clerics who apparently were meeting today and bombed. So I'm not sure what that means for the process going forward, but I guess we'll find out. Again, you mentioned one option, the current Supreme Leader's son. There's a bunch of speculation out there. I was going to text through a bunch of names. And then I realized, like, no one knows who we're talking about. And also, Trump seems to think they're all getting killed. Yeah, you strap and dropping, like, Laronjani's name.

Yeah, that poor guy. He gets sort of, Lerjani's name gets pushed out there right as he Israelis start, like, taking out people. Well, he's kind of like the guy who's like in the, his role is kind of like in that movie about the selection of the Pope, the guy who's supposed to facilitate the processor. It's like Dick Cheney, like selecting the VP, you know, so he's supposed to be, but, but I think the one point about Chaminet, you know, because a lot's been said about what a creepy is and you said it well, is that there were alternatives in the sense that

this was not a monolithic system. And periodically at multiple points in the history of the Islamic Republic, there have been presidents, even, of the Islamic Republic, who wanted to move in a different direction. By the way, I used to get all this shit. People were like, there's no such thing as a moderate. No, there are. There are people that are more moderate than, you know, fucking Hamini or Qasem Soleimani, the head of the IRC. And Hamini would not let them do that. You know, he'd always keep it on such a short lease that he couldn't truly explore what it would be like to open things up a bit inside the country or to try to have a more meaningful detente with the West. So he was someone who had different alternatives available to him, even within the system they constructed.

The point is that, you know, I know most Iranians who don't like the Islamic Republic just wanted to go away and I get that. But he could have chosen to have a like a less extreme version of the Islamic Republic. And he wouldn't even do that. And now he's, you know, now he's met his Yeah, Twitter would get very offended if you ever pointed out that there might be differing political views in Iran. It's just a difference. It's just a flattened a society. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's Rahani, the president that Obama was doing with.

But then there was the Green Movement, right? Which those were people, Musavi, who was the green candidate in the 2009 election, was from within the system. Like, you know, they weren't coming to overthrow the government. they were running through the process, you know. And so there were these political figures available who could have led to a different type of Islamic Republic. Yeah. He always wanted, he always chose the hardest line.

And then you have Akhmedinajad who, I think the Israeli just bombed him for sport. I mean, I want to see, if they did kill him, that's strange and kind of twisted because he's not an active politician. Do you think it was possible concern that he could be a future leader and they wanted to take him out? Or it's just like straight vengeance? I feel, and the guy, defending that guy, he was a creep and the Holocaust scenario. But, like, near as I can tell, he's been, like, you know, tweeting about American sports and, like, I don't think he's an active politician. So I said to you, it'd be like if someone did a regime change here and, like, killed Dan Quail.

You know, it's like, what I don't really know. What a Dan do? But it does, it does just make it feel like vengeance, and that's not a good way to do these things. It does make it seem like blood sport. although I always will think of that S&L skit where they talk about him looking like a fly Jake Chilmsal. You have to laugh at something. Anyway, anything else on a round before we go to Cuba?

No, I mean, we'll stay on top of this. I would just say that we'll try to do our best to be as straight as we can without being hyperbically negative or, you know, Rosie. And today's is one of the days where it just doesn't feel very good. You know, that could maybe we have a better day tomorrow. but like honestly it's just like these are not good indicators that's pretty unsettling and thank you for watching and thank you again for subscribing the pot say the world on youtube or wherever you get your podcast all right let's turn to cuba ben because um a friend of the show lindy graham

kind of set the stage for our conversation today uh in this brief excerpt from his fox news interview let's watch cuba's next they're gonna fall this communist dictatorship in cuba their days are numbered how many martini you think he had before that hit i i mean it It's just extraordinary. Like the man's whole MO is to just get seemingly completely hammered and just scream about bombing different countries. The man regime change. Something is deeply wrong with that guy.

So we have discussed several times previously the humanitarian situation in Cuba. It isn't just dire. It's beyond dire. The U.S. had blocked all foreign oil shipments to Cuba. Then last week, they amended the policy to allow U.S. companies to send fuel to businesses in Cuba. It sounds like the idea is to help private companies while somehow end running the government to promote capitalism or something, something. I don't get how that would work in practice.

You think it's bullshit. I talked to some experts about this. And the thing is, you know, the stated strategy, right, is that you're trying to help the private sector. But how do you get it to them? The people who will be able to take advantage of this in Cuba are the people who have some means. And connections.

And connections. So the people that are starving are not going to benefit from this at all. So this feels more like a messaging exercise. than some actual rational policy to alleviate the humanitarian crisis that the United States is creating Cuba. Yeah. Last week, Trump said the U.S. is holding talks with Cuba and said, quote, maybe we'll have a friendly takeover of Cuba. He also said, Cuba is, to put it mildly, a failed nation.

It's really right now a nation in deep trouble, and they want our help, end quote. So Axios reported that Marco Rubio has been talking with Raul Castro's grandson about God knows what, I guess, transition. But what brings us, that all brings us to this crazy story from last week about a boat battle between 10 would-be liberators of Cuba and a Cuban border patrol boat. This went down last Wednesday. This is a speedboat with 10 guys on it of Cuban descent, two of whom are American citizens took off from Florida to Cuba. They reportedly brought with them high-powered rifles, nearly 13,000 rounds of ammo, Starlink satellite kits, a drone, and then a bunch more combat gear. The Wall Street Journal says their goal was to, quote, infiltrate the island, little by the island.

little in Spark or rebellion against a bankrupt regime. According to Cuban authorities, the patrol boat approached a speedboat whereupon the men on the speedboat opened fire. And in the end, three men were killed and seven were wounded. One Cuban soldier was injured. According to the journal, quote, relatives of the men said that the men lacked military training and capabilities and that they had unrealistic expectations, end quote, you don't say. So Ben, the coverage of this like the kind of Timo, Cuba regime change operation makes it sound like these guys were very naive. They did something very stupid and they probably did it on their own, but you never

know. It does bring back memories of like the Operation Mongoose CIA, you know, executed paramilitary bullshit we used to do. Like the CIA funded lots of efforts to fuck with the Cubans that were short of the Bay of Pigs is the kind of like short answer here. And then there's some speculation in these articles that Cuban intelligence was onto these guys because this patrol boat intercepted them like kind of in the middle of nowhere during the day with a fuel shortage, et cetera.

I don't know. Curious what you made of all that. And then second, like, Rubio talking to Castro's grandson. Is that the right channel? So, first of all, I entirely believable that these guys did this. And look, you know, they're replicating. I mean, Fidel and Raal Castro landed in a small boat, the grandma in Cuba. They were like seven guys.

Now, they were a little bit more ideologically coherent than these people. Not saying I agree with that ideology, but they, they had a plan. There's a lot of this. There's a lot of this kind of sabotage operations. There's the history of Operation Mongoos. There are a lot of groups down in Miami that would like to overthrow the Cuban government. And I don't put it past Tommy.

Some Trump associates kind of maybe saying, oh, great idea. I mean, we had this in Venezuela. Funding it on the side. Yeah, the guys at Mar-a-Lago were meeting with like ex-special forces guys who tried to do a coup in Venezuela and got arrested. I, the Cuban intelligence is deeply embedded in these Miami networks. I, that was my sense when I, I mean, I used to tell people in Miami like, you know, some of the Cubans would joke with me that the U.S. democracy funding was funding some of their

intelligence because they'd so thoroughly penetrated all these Miami dissident groups, you know. It sounded like these guys were talking politics out of Versailles, which is like a phasing. Well, yeah. And I'm not siding with, but I believe that. the Cubans have these groups pretty penetrated too. In terms of the outreach, I negotiated for, you know, three and a half years with Alejandro Castro, Rao Castro's son. I will say that Raul Castro and his family are more pragmatic than the hardliners. And in fact, they got sidel in part because they did the opening with us in the Obama administration. The Fidel had not

really supported it that much. In fact, kind of had opposed it in a lot of ways. And that a lot of the hardliners, after Trump yanked the rug on them, said, oh, see what you did? Like, you know, we never should trust the Americans. And so you've got much more hardline people kind of run in Cuba. And it's not Diaz Canal who's the president. There's kind of like a collection of hardliners. So the idea, Raoul still has a lot of power and he still the ultimate kind of supreme leader, as it were. He's in deep in his 90s.

So that's one destination to go. But what are you negotiating? Because what Trump is totally wrong about is friendly takeover. this is a regime deeply committed to its own survival. They're negotiating to try to survive, not to have a friendly takeover. I mean, this guy's, and just the idea that we're talking about

the regime change in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran within like the first quarter of this year, is insane. And clearly it's just Trump's ego wanting to be like, I've finally slayed all these dragons, but man, it's going to create a lot of instability. Yeah, and the person running the policy, in every instance is Marco Rubio.

And the people doing the negotiations in every instance are Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner. And it's like, you know what? We gave Kushner and Wickoff love for basically pressuring the Israelis to agree to a ceasefire and getting the hostages out. Like that was a good thing. That ceasefire, as we've discussed many times, is a joke. But like, let's look at the rest of the Wickhoff Kushner record.

How's it going in Ukraine? Right. Remember we're going to end that war in 24 hours? It's now been well over a year. the negotiations with Iran had not only been failures but like halfway through the Israelis end up bombing.

Maybe we should send some pros. Maybe some people who actually know about Iran and its nuclear program or when I went to Cuba to negotiate, I was with Ricardo Zuniga who was on this podcast last week.

You could all hear it for yourself. Like guy had been deep. He'd lived and served in Cuba as a human rights officer for the U.S. So I mean, you don't get a sense that they are... I mean, Marco Rubio, he's never been to Cuba.

I mean, and this is something I think people don't understand. Like, he obviously comes from a Cuban family, but he's never been to Cuba, right? I don't think he understands the dynamics as well as he thinks he does. Well, also, Trump, like, Trump thinks that everyone thinks like him

and negotiates like him. And again, the dumbest bullshit we've all had to read for the last however many years is that, like, you've got to think differently. You got to shake things up. You've got to treat like a real estate deal. What are they going to get?

What are we going to get? And like, these guys don't understand the role of, like, beliefs and ideology, something bigger than yourself, right? Because for Trump, it is all transactional. It's all selfish. It's all about himself. And not for these guys. All right, Ben, finally, we want to lighten it up a bit with some of the latest news about

FBI director Cash Patel and his country singing sensation girlfriend Alexis Wilkins. You guys might remember our coverage of Cash Patel's trip to the Olympics where cash chugged beer with the men's hockey team. It was a universally beloved segment. as predicted. We've since learned that Trump was not happy about Cash's behavior.

According to NBC news, Trump told Patel that he did not like the images of him chugging beer in that jersey looking like a stupid goober,

nor did he like Patel using a government plane to fly to Milan, so feel free to fire the guy. And then our masochistic producer Michael spent an hour watching a Twitter Q&A that Alexis Wilkins did

where she, I don't, she's like... That could be fun. I mean, that could actually be kind of... Was it fun? No, he says, it was not fun. She just talks to herself and takes questions. Is the gist?

Yeah. He says, yeah. She was asked about the Olympics trip and what happened. Here's Alexis's answer. What do you think Elon Doge's opinion would be on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and cash drink beer with hockey players? So I really am not going to dip too much into this because this is kind of my whole point. But what I will say is the beer.

has long been in charge of providing security for the Olympics. And that's what was happening. So I think that we should be probably more concerned with the fact that, you know, the Democrats were trying to spend millions of dollars to see if mice can be transgender and the fact that has stopped. Clears it up, right? You got it now. I just, I just, this is the dumbest fucking fascism in human history, people. I mean, I knew that the American version of fascism was going to be stupid, but between, like, from the spectrum of Melania Trump at the UN Security Council through the insane management of this war to that person, like, saying those words out loud, the FBI does not provide the fucking security at the Olympics.

Like, gosh, Patel certainly doesn't. I mean, they may be part of, like, a whole collective effort. The transgender mice. If Philip Roth. The transgender mice. Could have imagined that. who had written some very different books. Ben, look, we're not done with Alexis

because the New York Times wrote this big profile of Alexis Wilkins, Cash's girlfriend. The story is, it's one of those pieces of reporting that is so funny and just like a really dry way. So it describes her as... I love those. I love those. So this was a master of the genre. It describes her as, quote,

one of the best protected country singers in the United States because Cash has put an FBI SWAT team on duty to protect her at all times. Here's a couple more lines from the story. This is all verbatim. Last April, agents and two SEVs stood guard outside a senior center

in Ronald Reagan's boyhood home of Dixon, Illinois, while she sang for a few dozen young conservatives. I like that one. This is a quote from someone. I would say she's an amateur, maybe an aspiring country music artist, said the longtime country music critic,

Kyle Corneos of SavingCountrymus. On the national anthem, I'd probably give her a 7.5 on a 10 scale, he said. So she's a C. And this is my favorite part, Ben. So Ms. Wilkins, the daughter of a financial specialist in the aerospace industry, her mother, and a global consumer products executive for Gillette, her father,

have lived in London and Switzerland and for a time attended elementary school at College du Le Mans in Geneva. She's originally from the Boston suburb of Weymouth, but likes to emphasize her time living in Arkansas. Quote, there are just some things that limousine liberal will never understand from the coasts, she recently wrote. you know the thing about this that drives me nuts is people may not know this about me tell me but my father is from Rosenberg Texas and is one of like 42 first cousins I think almost all of

whom are still in Texas they live in I'm not going to say because in this case but they live in like rural parts of Texas so I was raised on like Willie Nelson, Whalen Jennings right on Like outlaw country. Jerry Jeff Walker, you know, like some fucking legends, all right? Like some goddamn legends. And people that actually didn't have to be this kind of sanitized, right-wing version of country music. So in addition to her being kind of full of it and being a ridiculous way for us to be spending tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money, I'm offended by this version of country music

that it's just this kind of soft you know turning point USA like propaganda you know bullshit propaganda music yeah like like go listen to some fucking Willie Nelson and Whalen Jennings and then learn about some country music and then come back to me I'd rather have

let's have some SWAT teams protecting Willie because he's still out there doing it he is he's still out there on the road we uh we got Willie Nelson we can get fucking high after this show Willie Nelson Nelson those edible what are those called drink or whatever? I don't know. I mean, let's do that, right?

Because that's a way to celebrate this country. Amen. Getting high with Willie Nelson. Amen. Like, rather than listening to this garbage. Yeah, I don't think Willie Nelson was supporting everything the FBI director said. And unless you think we're being too mean to Alexis Wilkins and she's just a random civilian, I just want to point out that beginning a day after Alex Prettie's murder by ICE up in Minnesota,

she called him a domestic terrorist, an idiot and a vigilante. So this is a person who's very much operated. in the kind of like nasty maga media space and is what it is. Yeah, it is what it is, unfortunately. Anyway, so that's that. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, you're going to hear Ben's interview with Congresswoman Yasmin Ansari.

I'm going to talk about Iran, the diaspora, possible war powers, votes, what Congress can do to actually stop this insane regime-chained war of choice. So stick around for that. This episode is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. No matter where you live or how much money you make, you deserve to get the hell health care you need when you need it. One in four people across the country have come to a Planned Parenthood Health Center for Care. But in a politically motivated attempt to block patients from using their Medicaid insurance to get essential care at Planned Parenthood, the Trump administration

and its backers in Congress passed a law to defund Planned Parenthood. As many as 200 Planned Parenthood health centers could close. That means cancers will go undetected, STIs will go untreated, and patients won't get the birth control or abortion care they need to plan their families and their futures. But Planned Parenthood is not backing down. They're still showing up for patients, providing essential care, and making sure that everyone can get the life-saving, life-changing services they need. Alongside people like you and me,

Planned Parenthood fights every day to build the future we deserve, one where everyone can get the care they need no matter who they are or where they live. Planned Parenthood is an unbelievably important organization that is providing health care to countless people in places where they otherwise should not be able to get it. these politicized tax on Planned Parenthood means people are going to die. Cancers will go undetected. Women will not be able to get the care they need.

It is an outrage. So if you can support Planned Parenthood, please do. Donate now to support Planned Parenthood at plannedparenthood.org slash defend. All right, we are very pleased to be joined again by Congresswoman Yasmin Ansari, who represents Arizona's third district. She's also the only Iranian-American Democrat in Congress, and one of the younger members of Congress, member of the Progressive Caucus, friend of the pod. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. All right. I want to get to your reactions personally, you know, from various vantage points. But before even getting to that, I'm just curious, as a member of Congress, how are you being kept informed about this war? You know, how did you learn about it? Have you been briefed? Are there upcoming briefings? Do you feel like you're getting the information you need?

We have not been briefed about this war. at all. Today, right after we are chatting today, we will have our very first, you know, classified briefing by Secretary Rubio and Hegset and others. The briefings, you know, this is, these are open to every single member of Congress. They're typically just one hour long, in my experience, when we've had them before, always after the fact. That was the case in the Venezuela incident as well. They do everything they can to run out the clock, leave very little time for questions, and you'll have a line of members lined up to ask questions. I've tried to ask questions every single time.

And typically, you know, there's room for two people and time is up. So it's always insufficient. And of course, it's already an issue that it happens days, if not a week after an attack takes place. And that's pretty much it. I mean, even, you know, the most senior level officials in Congress, including the gang of eight, were informed very last minute. and I know we're unsatisfied with the level of briefing that they got and have publicly said that there was no imminent threat to the United States as it pertains to Iran.

That's pretty extraordinary, actually. I mean, I know you're relatively new there, but do any of the Republicans grumble about this privately? I mean, it's just an incredible disregard for the United States Congress. and hypothetically, the Republicans who control the House could insist on more information. Are they just comfortable being completely infantilized like this? I don't know. Privately, I have heard rumblings not just about this issue, but in general the way the Trump administration operates and in general, the way that they don't take Congress seriously. I mean, Trump has openly made comments saying that, you know, Congress,

is essentially working for him. And he knows that. Mike Johnson is working for him. He always has. Look, just in the last couple of weeks, we've had a number of days canceled with no explanation. This is exactly what happened last summer when debates around the Epstein files were taking place. And Mike Johnson shut down Congress a week early before we already had a one month, August, you know, recess. It's been happening this week as well. We're only in session for two days. Last week, a day was canceled. And again, no explanation. When we're talking about matters of war. So, you know, this continues to be a Congress led, I will blame Mike Johnson, you know, to a massive extent here because he has just completely abdicated his leadership,

abdicated the role of Congress, you know, tells his members to act accordingly. And you see very few members speak up publicly about it because they still remain terrified of the retaliation that Donald Trump shows those who do speak up. And we've seen that. Well, we're, we're We're going to talk about the war now, but what you just described is another reason why the midterm elections are so absolutely essential, because we essentially have a dictatorial government now that is starting wars and not even telling the people's representatives about them. So now, I want to get your reaction. So you have a totally unique vantage point on this situation as a member of Congress. You come from a family that had to flee this regime. you've spoken out very powerfully about the Women's Life Freedom Movement,

and when Ahmane was killed, the Supreme Leader, you know, you were very strong and condemning the evil legacy that he represented. At the same time, you've taken and knowing you, a very principal position that despite those feelings about the regime, you know, the U.S. and Israel bombing it kind of it with no plan is not the right course of action. And so you've been kind of strongly opposed to that course of action. I know there's a lot there. Let's just begin with how have you personally tried to process this as both a member of Congress and obviously someone who cares deeply about this situation for lots of reasons. Thank you for the question. For the audience,

I'll share my parents fled the regime in the 70s. And they were very, very, very, anti-Islamic revolution. This is actually something that is relatively rare at the time the revolution was very popular. But my family was always against the Islamic Republic before it became obvious that they were violent, theocratic, murderous dictators. My grandfather was a monarchist. He served in elected leadership at the city council level in Iran. He was imprisoned when the revolution took place. I've had cousins who have been beheaded by the Islamic Republic. So I say all this information to say that I despise the Islamic Republic, just like the vast majority of Iranians inside and outside of the country for a good reason. They just slaughtered up to potentially tens of thousands of people. And it's true

that they are left alone and that there's really, you know, it's very difficult to overthrow a regime, you know, unarmed and against such a tyrannical group of individuals who, quite frankly, will do whatever it takes to survive. That being said, I think multiple things can be true at one time. I'm a U.S. Congresswoman concerned about the Constitution of the United States that Donald Trump has been shredding since he took office last year. Donald Trump did not have the constitutional authority to start a war with Iran without coming to Congress first and without making a case to the American people. It is wonderful that Chaminé has been murdered,

and I understand the very complex feelings. You'll see a lot of Iranians celebrating that, as it should be celebrated. And all of these things have happened. And now, you know, what I think about a lot and what I've been talking to Iranians, both inside and outside of the country, about is what is the plan for what comes next.

What my concern is, is that Donald Trump, just as he's demonstrated here in the United States, that he does not care about democracy, that he doesn't have a plan, that he moves around from issue to issue, that I'm concerned about the future of Iran now. You've taken out the Supreme Leader. Schools are being bombed. Now there's reporting coming out and a piece soon in the Atlantic that hundreds of millions of dollars are being funneled to Kurdish. separatist groups in Iraq, which could then cause a civil war in the country. The M.E.K, which used to be which is a cult terrorist group, is part of that. We're hearing also from Donald Trump about,

you know, making deals with somebody else in the regime. I just worry that Donald Trump, based on everything he has said and exhibited so far, does not have a real plan that will lead to actual stability and democracy for the Iranian people, which is honestly what I want at the end of the day. I don't want to see American troops harmed. I'm worried about the Americans who are in the Middle East right now. I'm getting outreach from constituents whose family members are stuck in Dubai, and the State Department is telling them we have no way to help you or get you out. I mean, this is a catastrophic situation that was clearly done with no plan for either the safety of Americans or the safety of Iranian civilians as well.

That's a very powerful answer. And I want to just kind of follow up on this point about the lack of plan and some of the concerning things we're seeing. Because, you know, already you've seen Trump give these kind of shifting rationales. Like this is for freedom and the Iranian people should rise up or I just want to do Venezuela and find someone in the regime, essentially. And that's a mixed message, right? If you're an Iranian, do you choose to rise up? But then what? Do you do this Trump? have your back or not. And then this reporting, I mean, it's kind of the worst possible strategy, arming ethnic minority groups, whether they be Kurdish, and that seems where it's starting, there's a Baluk separatists, potentially Arab populations. I mean, that we've, look at Syria and Lebanon, right? Look at Iraq. And my question, when you talk to, you mentioned maybe being in touch with people in the country or people who are very happy that, the Supreme Leader's gone, are they aware of these risks and how do they think they can be avoided? Like, do you have a sense of people, particularly inside of Iran, but even some of the

people are very active outside, have their own plan about how this is going to end well? Because I honestly, truly cannot find it. I don't mean to be so pessimistic, but I just can't see the pathway to something that is not either really violent or really repressive. I think, like, any population, you know, Iranians aren't a monolith. There's a wide range of views right now. A lot of opinions, yeah, yeah. I think there's the most common thread that I have heard is a mix of hope for the first time ever. You know, I guess, you know, there's no doubt that getting rid of the upper echelon of the Islamic Republic is a massive win and considered something to be hopeful about. but I think that's coupled with fear and a sense of anxiety about the future, you know,

especially as bombs are falling, especially as news comes out about, you know, the arming of groups because a big fear that Iranians have and something most Iranians do not want is the separation, the end of territorial integrity of the country. People want to keep Iran as Iran as opposed to the country breaking up into different factions. And that's something that's very very, important to people from all backgrounds, but that's a real risk when you start arming different, you know, groups. And, you know, but again, I will just say there's, at this moment, there's people who are happy about what Trump did. But my fear is that without a real plan, that will shift. And I have not seen that real plan. And I also just want to speak to,

you know, all the different factions at play there are, you know, during the protests a couple weeks ago. You saw people chanting the name of the former king, the crown prince, who does have a lot of support in Iran and outside of Iran. But if you look to Donald Trump's words, every time he's asked, he does not back the crown prince. Just today, he said, I don't, I think he seems like a nice guy, but, you know, there may be someone inside the country. And so every, like, piece of evidence that you look at. And what he said, Donald Trump is looking either at finding someone within the current regime apparatus that he can work with, that he can cut a deal with and call it a win, which is not what Iranians want, or arm these different groups, cause chaos and essentially have state collapse,

which will lead to violence, not just in Iran, but in the region for years to come. Oh, yeah. Years and years and years. I mean, if this goes bad, it could go very bad. Yeah, and his words about Reza Pahlavi are kind of like, you know, how he talked about Maria Machado after, you know, taking Amadro. This is not someone who's going to expend a lot of effort to try to have a transition to some democratic entity or even monarchical entity led by Rezapalvi as far as I can see. So I want to also just ask you about Congress. And what are the next steps there?

So we have these potential war power votes in the House. You know, Rokana and Thomas Massey have this resolution that is. is essentially about, you know, forcing a vote for a congressional authorization. What are the chances of that passing? And if not, it seems like it might not, what are the other things that Congress can do to try to get some control over this, try to rein Trump in, try to hold then at least accountable in terms of information? What's kind of the game plan as you see it now? Well, in the conversations I've been a part of with our entire caucus, I'm pleased to see that

Democratic leadership is taking this vote very seriously. They are, you know, whipping on it and urging all members to vote for the war powers resolution because it's, again, even for those individuals who may support certain parts of the operation, and that's a whole different debate, what this is very clearly is support of the Constitution and support of reigning in the Constitution and support of reigning in the president who has consistently shredded the Constitution. A lot of us take this very seriously. And so, you know, I'll just say from my personal experience, even just from the last year, this is one of the top times I've seen a lot of alignment and a need, a desire from folks in our caucus to be united on this. Because we know there's already a couple of Republicans who will be joining us and feel strongly about this as well.

So I'm cautiously optimistic. I also think the situation is developing so rapidly. We've had more Americans die. Now absolute chaos with the State Department and an American stuck in the Middle East. So I hope that those Democrats who were saying were thinking of not voting for it, recognize that now. And who knows what will happen in the next 24 hours as well. So there's that.

And then the DHS funding debate is still ongoing and how that relates is Republicans are trying to now make the argument that because of the threats, potentially to the homeland that they have caused with this reckless war, that they, the Democrats need to get on board and fund DHS. And so there's a bill now to actually separate ICE from everything else in DHS, and we'll see if any Republicans support that. But there's leverage elsewhere. But again, I genuinely hope I'm wrong. I really want, when I go to the briefing today, I'm going to be asking about, you know, the plan, especially as it pertains to the reports of arming these groups, because I think that's an absolutely horrific idea. And what the U.S. actually should be doing if we're serious is working with a multilateral coalition, trying to have internationally monitored free and fair elections, actually supporting civil society groups on the ground, like providing internet access, actually creating the conditions for the Iranian people to, you know, have the future that they want to have.

have, not one that the U.S. or Israel imposes on them. One more piece on Congress. What about just getting basic information about, say, the cost of this war? We've heard nothing about the price tag. I know a little bit of something about this. This is not cheap. I mean, these deployments, the munitions that are being spent, the very expensive missile defense systems being used, do you feel like there's any capacity to get transparent information

about the cost of all this? I absolutely think there is, and we have to do that. I think in a world where people are seeing their health care ripped away, their food assistance ripped away, housing costs are out of control. There's a reason why only one in four Americans have indicated support for what Donald Trump has done. That is not surprising at all, but it's a blow to the president. So I think we need to take that on more seriously and take on the message of cost because billions of dollars, are going to be spent on a war, and there's no plan to end that war, no off-ramp that we have heard of. And meanwhile, Americans continue to struggle and be unable to afford anything, really.

It's really shameful. And I think that it's going to cause real further racism of Americans, against Iranians, against people from the Middle East. I mean, we haven't even gotten to talking about those unintended consequences that are bound to happen, especially as we're going into this in a form that's not even popular. I mean, people don't even want to do this. So they're coming, Americans are not supporting this. So they're going to feel strongly about the individuals or whatever that they see as connected to the deaths of Americans. Yeah, boy, I had not really wrapped my mind around that. But we've obviously seen that happen in the past. Well, one more question before you go.

I just want to, because I know you have a briefing, but I just want to give the opportunity to reflect on, you know, your parents flee this country. So you're obviously in this position where, you know, you have their exile story, and then you're a very American story, obviously. But what do you, when you think about, because I know you were so passionate about the women like freedom movement,

you know, you're in your 30s. When you think about an Iranian woman in their 30s who's never known anything but the Islamic Republic and is now dealing with this, you know, they're in Tehran, they just, you know, wherever they are. I mean, what do you want? I mean, how do you kind of put into words like, I just imagine, yes, mean,

that this must have just be such a wrenching time for you. You're under all these competing kind of pressures. obviously, but just more fundamentally on a human level, what is kind of your message to that Iranian woman about what we won for her? Yeah, I think about this all the time. You know, the only difference between me and that woman that you're describing is that I was lucky enough to have been born in the United States and lucky enough, that's it. I mean, that's actually all it is is the difference. And it is catastrophic what Iranians is. And it is catastrophic what Iranians is. and women in particular have had to face. I mean, there have been over a decade now of pro-democracy

movements that have been shut down over and over again by this regime. I wrote my college essay about the Green Movement in 2009 and a hopeful vision for a future Democratic Iran. The most recent massacre, you know, it's estimated that over 20,000 people were murdered. And so first I'll say I understand the desperation and the calls for help. I do think that other countries should help Iranians. I absolutely think that. I mean, I think there needs to be on a multilateral coalition that has a real plan

to help Iranian people with self-determination and getting the future that they deserve because it's a country of 90 million people, smart, educated, talented individuals who could bring so much prosperity to the rest of the world. And so much, you know, just so many positive things that it would be a huge, huge win for international security overall. So I, you know, I think for those women, keep speaking up and speaking out. And if there is ways to, you know, communicate with us, I think that our government, what we actually should be doing is supporting Internet access, making sure that you can get on the internet and communicate to us, making sure that your

civil society groups and human rights groups are supported. Right now, there's also thousands of people in Evine prison, which is like the most notorious prison in Iran, some of the best and brightest minds. Those are the people that we need to get out to help create the future of Iran. I don't think it should be imposed from the outside. But I will do anything I can look. despite being opposed to this administration and its lawlessness and its anti-democratic views here in the U.S., if I can be productive and do anything to support a plan to actually have a positive future for Iran, I will work with anyone to do that. And I am committed to that. So that's my message. Yeah. Well, it's very powerful. And it's a reminder that we need to listen to those Iranians.

You know, I mean, we didn't listen to Afghans. We didn't listen to Iraqis. You know, we didn't listen to Libyans in the country, actually. We're mainly talking to diaspora, Libyans. And not saying there's not a role for the diaspora, but, I mean, the people in the country know best. What might help? And we have to find ways to get their voices to us so that we're informed by them. Well, look, I know you have to run, but thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you. And we'll keep in touch. Thanks so much. Thanks to Congress from Ansari for joining the show. And God knows when we'll talk to you guys next. Thanks to Michael for listening to the hour of the Alexis, you know, Patel. I love it. What happened to Liz Trust?

She was in L.A. We couldn't book her. We couldn't book her. We couldn't book her. No, you guys didn't seem excited. I was when I sent that text on. Oh, oh, I guess we're to blame for Liz Trust not being on the show this week. I got it.

Okay. Good to know. Got it. Well, talk to you. We'll see you probably before next week. Yeah, unfortunately. Pod Save the World is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Alona Minkowski.

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