EP:50 - Iran War Gets Worse
00:04All humans break.The difference between humans and gods is that gods can break humans.Negotiate now.End this war.You're watching Provoked with Daryl Cooper and Scott Horton, debunking the propaganda lies of the past, present, and future.This is Provoked.All right, you guys.Welcome to the show.
00:38It's Provoked on our new night Thursday.night. We should have probably always beenThursday night. Sometimes we were Thursday night.Now we're Thursday night.Here live. And so we gotFridays off.Well, Friday nights anyway.How are you doing, Darrell?
00:54Doing all right. What are those fancythings on your hair? Oh, I'm wearing cans becauseChristopher Williamsinsists that we turnour dang speakers down and wear headphones.I know yours are broken, but...Yeah, man, I wish I had some.I'm not sure what happened to those.
01:12But now that they're broken, you have to get some noise.But the thing is that that's okay.I think it'll help that we don't have you loud in the room.Yeah.Hold on.I got an echo with the audio of myself.Oh, you're getting it right now?Yeah, and everybody else is getting in too.
01:29And I don't know how to fix it.Let me see here.Oh, well, just turn your speakers down.You're definitely not loud in my room.They're pretty far down.Everybody's standby.I don't think you're...echoing through my system back to you,
01:43shouldn't be.No, I don't see how.I'm good and quiet here.And minused out of whatever return thing.That echo cancellation.Oh, you know what?Hello.That is something that I changed, though,
02:00that he told me to turn off.How about now?How about now?No, we're good.We're good?Yeah, good job, Scott.That was it.I shouldn't have listened to him on one thing, but not the other thing.
02:16All right.And see, here we thought that it was going to be a dawn of a new day with me having the tech problem, but it was you after all.No, man, it's always me.And listen, I don't give a damn.That's how the show is supposed to start apparently now.Some damn tech problem.Well, anyway, it should still help with the cross talk as far as the ducking.each other's signal and all that crap that happens with these things.
02:43It seems like they would get the full double duplex deal going on by now with all thisnewfangled Skype technology.But no.Anyway, look, the war is on.So we got to talk about that.But you know what?Let me go ahead and tell them right up front here that this show is brought to you by MattSersely.
03:07And he gives this great tax advice.You find him at agoristtaxadvice.com.And what it is, as it says here,a tax planning attorney for small businessesand high income professionals.The man is after your bank account.So work with Matt and he will help you hang onto every last penny that you possibly can.
03:32And it's through his generosity that this show is a show in part.And so we're happy to thank him for thatand recommend y'all to him.So, again, aggristaxadvice.com.The news is that the war is sort of kind of back on,but maybe not really.Darrell, what do you make of it?I mean, it's hard to say, right?
03:52Like, one of the fundamental problems with this war is that,well, I guess like the sort of the difficultywe're having maintaining a level with it, at least,a level of intensity.is that Trump seems to want to get into this prolonged tit for tat.Like, we can do this all day kind of thing.You know, our destroyers are usually just intercepting medicine going into Yemenand dump it in the ocean.
04:24We got plenty of them sitting around.Like, we can do blockades.We can do, like, precision strikes here and there.But the problem with it is that Iran, like, their basic strategy.I'm talking just purely on the military sideof using drones and missiles,it just does not lend itself to a small scale tit for tat kind of thing.If they fire one drone or one missile,
04:50we will shoot it down.And to do anything at all,they really have to do like a saturation attack,which means a massive attack.So everything requires a massive retaliationor relatively large retaliation.And so when we get into a situation,where whatever happened,
05:09I'm still contacting peopletrying to figure out exactly what happenedwith that Apache helicopter.Like something like that happensthat, who knows?May have been an inadvertent, may have been,you know, just,who knows?
05:25Like, it could have been anything.Just a one-off thing.And normally, and we've done this in the past,like, you know, we've gotten off-rampfor things like that when something happensthat neither side really wants to have,We say, okay, you hit, we hit.But it just doesn't work.
05:40Like the Apache thing happens.We hit them and Iran just launches everywhere.And now we're back in the war again.And it's like, it's a hard one to get around for sure.Yeah, man.Well, and they have hit bases reportedly in Jordan, in Qatar,pardon me, in Kuwait and Bahrain.And I forget if it was Saudi or not.
06:04But so, yeah, a massive attack and in a bunch of different places too.And of course, you know, it all started with they're essentially intervening on behalf of Lebanon in a way that they never have before.I mean, Israel's breaking the ceasefire.It's supposedly America's ceasefire, but we're somehow having a lot of trouble dragging Israel along on the ceasing of firing thing.And so Iran went ahead and hit Israel, which I think, I.I believe that's the first over the decades that they've done anything like that.But so now apparently they're feeling that strength,that they think they're in the position to go ahead and do that
06:45and enforce the ceasefire their own way.And then, of course, I don't know what would have happened without the Apache thing.You know, maybe it would have died down there.I guess Trump at the time was supposedly telling the Israelis to cool itand then they got a few more shots off anyway.And then the Apache thing happened.as you said, it could have been anything.The Iranians are not claiming credit for it.
07:09And in fact, I'm sorry, I can't remember what it was, Darrow, that said that, you know,maybe I think it was an Iranian official floated the possibility that it was an Iranian boat out there,you know, doing their job.And they do, oh, no, no, no, it wasn't an Iranian that said it.It was an American who said, I can't remember who it was, but it floated the possibilitythat it was an Iranian out there and they do have anti-airns.aircraft capability on their boats.So maybe if they thought they were being threatened by the Apache,
07:39they fired one off.And that was like command authority delegated that load to them,that they have the right to do that.But it doesn't mean that they were speaking for Central Commandthat we're back at war now.You know what I mean?Then again, you make one of them fancy helicopters crash.You might upset the commander-in-chief over here.
07:57You know what I mean?It's a bad thing to happen.The two guys survived, thank goodness, you know.but as you said, we don't really know what happened.They say the two guys are alive.At least we, I think, know that.But then, so he bombed him for two days or two nights,and then supposedly was going to bomb the holy hell out of him again,
08:18and then he changed his mind again,or at least he said that he did,which may mean, in fact, the opposite,that now he's going to go really hard.But he said that he's called off the third night of strikesbecause now they're making significant progress on the talks,which I don't know about that.I don't know.
08:37I don't know really what's going on with those talksor who even has a good line on that.Maybe Laura Rosen, I should start following.I mean, the Iranians, they deny it completely.They say that everything that's coming out of the administrationabout a deal being imminent is just made up.And, you know, who knows that could be for domestic consumption,but on all, you know, I don't know enough about the Iranian side's sort of,
08:58you know, propaganda relationship to their own peopleto make a call on that. But from our side's perspective, I'll tell you this, and this is sad to say,it sounds like I'm almost like joking or something. I'm not at all. I could totally, totallysee Trump, somebody getting in his ear and being like, dude, the SpaceX IPO is tomorrow.Cut it off until Monday. Stop it until Monday or something. Just because like, you know,we've seen that kind of thing over and over and over again, you know, on a,Mondays and Fridays or leading into Mondays and Fridays.So you can't really, I mean, Trump just says things.
09:39You know, I watched the most recent, I think it's the most recent or second and most recentfrontline documentary that came out, or maybe it was a couple ago, but it was called theWar Cabinet.It's about Trump and his cabinet.Yeah.Yeah, and it wasn't bad.It was, you know, Frontline obviously is always sort of like where you go to get the officiallike consensus story, you know, and that's valuable.
10:03That's useful sometimes to know sort of exactly what they're thinking, like readingporn affairs or something.And, you know, the consensus, I mean, you say you saw the show, the consensus in the show reallyseemed to be that Trump is is doing this like purely in a, like out of motives to do withhis own sort of psychological requirements, you know what I mean?and just the, you know, the way they framed, for example,us getting involved last June and bombing the nuclear siteswas that when Trump made the decision that we were going to do it
10:41and ordered people to start planning, start getting ready,the war still looked like it was just this bang-up success for Israel.And he just saw that and he's like, well, I can't let Netanyahu get all the credit.I got to get in on this.And so, which sounds kind of crazy with any other people.president. And it even would have been crazy with Trump, 2016 to 2020, because he had,you know, whatever you think of them, just sort of overall, he had serious people like McMasteror Mattis, you know, these people around him who had enough confidence in themselves in their own
11:18sort of position that they could tell the president, you know, that that's a bad idea and we're notgoing to do it. And, you know, sometimes in ways that, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's astep in, right? But, um, I'm just saying like, from the standpoint of like, trying to, trying to,trying to see what's going on, like, is this plausible? I would say that, like, in the first day,administration, probably not, but this one, maybe, maybe, you know, and just the need to alwayslook like he's winning, look like tough guy, all that, you know, just the image aspect of it issomething he understands very deeply. And so he just says things, you know, he just says whateverto put a narrative out there and pound it home. And, you know, then, then you go and try to work
12:18a situation to make your magic words come true, you know. Yeah. Yeah, power positive.thinking, man. You just got to keep projecting it. Now, on the other hand, there was a piece by a singerin the Times who, I forget if he even talked to any Iranians in there. Honestly, man, I'd have togo back and look at it. But at least it made it appear that these talks are not just fantasy, that theyare having some talks. And they even had, in fact, I think I have here. I think I was going toshow you about that. Be better if I could see.I'm not reading the glasses on there.So here Trump's supposed he was even going to accept the down blending,
13:00as they say, of the enriched uranium to lower percentages to 35and let Iran hold on to the stockpile.Just dilute it down.That's a huge climb down or would potentially be a huge climb down.The other one was he was going to accept a sunset of 15 years on no enrichment.which he could have just extended the sunset under the JCPOAeasily if that had been his thing.But so that had, you know,
13:31according to saying that's Trump's people,at least willing to climb down quite a bit.But then the bombing begins and Trump says,no nuclear and whatever.And the whole thing's cast it out.You know, I'm sorry, man.In a way, we're not really making any progressin this conversation any further than they are on these talks
13:49because he's still stuck in the same rockin a hard place. And so we're still analyzing that same stupid stuck position that, well,he lost a war, but he still has all this power. So like George Bush or Barack Obama in Afghanistan,he just don't want to admit it. He just wants to kick the can down the road until something else happens,figure something else out. Can't admit that he lost. And until he does, then we're all screwed.And the threat is that the war will get much worse. Yeah. And, you know, we always come back to thefundamental hang up, which is that, you know, you said it earlier that we can't seem to keepour little ally Israel to stick to these ceasefires that we keep, we keep putting out there.
14:39And the thing is, like, that should be fine.Like, Israel is a sovereign country.Israel can say, you guys have a ceasefire with Iran.We got our own problems with Lebanon, whatever.And so we're not a part of that.They could, they totally can do that.But the appropriate response to it and the response we would give to any other country would be, all right, well, you guys have fun then.And that would be that, you know.
15:05But because, you know, Israel, Israel sort of calls the shots, I mean, from the very beginning, I remember an episode when this thing first started out.And one of us said, you know, that this thing is.is going to come down to whether or not Trump can manage to,to, you know, grow enough balls to tell Netanyahu in the Israel lobby no, period.Like that, everything else, you know, whether it's this enrichment or that or this sunset or all of that is really just window dressing to, can he tell the Israelis no?And if he can't, then he's still going to be in this war, you know, by the time he gets out of office.and your sounds off.Sorry, I do that out of politeness, and then I mess up.
15:58Yeah, and look, the no is huge.The no is not just, hey, look, stop bombing Lebanon.The no is you've got to rein all of this in,and we're not co-signing on any of it anymore.I mean, again, he's the one who gave Iran this advantageous positionthat they would not have dared, evidently,before February the 28th.now they're willing to go ahead and fight Israel.
16:25And as Mir Schumer says,go up the escalation ladder and signal their willingnessto go ahead and continue the fight.All this stuff about how they're lickedand they're ready to give inand they're begging to sign a deal and whatever.They're even willing to jump in on the side of Hezbollahand whoever else, Christians and whoever else
16:46are getting bombed to death in Lebanon right now.So, yeah, and, you know, the whole...He can't, he won't, because it's the hugest no in the whole world.It's not, no, let's not start this.It's, no, I demand you end this right now, all of this stuff,which is just too big of a deal for him, too.Yeah, yeah, and, you know, the one thing that maybe I would have,you know, placed my bets on was that after a while, Trump would just start to
17:18feel humiliated and his ego would be the thing that drove.But I think we're far, far, far past that.I mean, we passed that threshold a long, long time ago.So, yeah, I don't have a whole lot of hope for it.I mean, I think at this point, you know, people, once we got maybe three or four weeksinto the war, you started to see, I think, I think Mearsheimer said a few other peoplemay have said it, that at this point, the war is going to be fought to its military conclusion.There's just not, you know, the players that are in power right now, like in the U.S., in Israel, the various dynamics that are at play, are just not going to allow us to have a clean exit any more than it has from any other war, other than like the Houthi little, you know, dust up, where you can sort, nobody cares, right?
18:08Nobody even knew we were at war unless you're watching the Scott Horton show or something.You can get away with that.But, you know, this, I mean, again, like, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran.Iraq, Vietnam, I mean, just go back and back and back. And the political system almost seems set up in such a way that it is almost impossible for a president to admit this was a bad idea and just walk away. It's almost impossible, you know? And I wouldn't say by design, but it is designed in a way that makes it almost impossible, you know? And so all of the talk, you know, if Trump had the ability to love.lay enough bombs on Iran in a day or over a course of time or anything like that that wouldpush this war toward the end. He would not even be talking to them right now. He would be bombing them.He's not doing it because he does not have the means. I mean, he just does not have the meansto bomb Iran into submission. And the only things that we can really do at this point to escalate
19:16from our side. I mean, we can go back to assassinating people again, but that obviously hasn'treally accomplished anything at all, is we can start bombing infrastructure like we've been talkingabout for like a couple months now. But Iran has an immediate retaliation card to play on all of thatthat, you know, is several steps up the escalation ladder from whatever we can do to them,especially when you account for the fact that Israel's this tiny little country, you know, thatit's much more dependent on single points of failure or has much less redundancy in itsinfrastructure systems for water and power and all these things than Iran does.And so, yeah, do not believe for a second that, I mean, I know you don't,
20:04but the idea that Trump, you know, he's thinking about hitting him really, really, really hard this time,and they're going to be sorry, but, well, I'm just not going to do it.Trump does not have the means to do that right now in a way that's not going to provokebacklash from Iran that that will hurt more. Yeah. Now, I don't know if this was verified, but I know thatIranian press reports were that they did hit a water reservoir that was responsible for providinga lot of water. And I know they've had droughts recently. I don't know how much rains they've had inthe meantime. In fact, I read a thing that said they got a lot of rain since the war started,and then they were all taken as divine providence that the drill broke with the war.
20:45bring it, dude, God's on our side kind of thing.Anyway, they did bond that reservoir,so that makes all those desalination plants tempting targets for,and I read a thing, this may have been a bit hyperbolic,but it seemed serious, like it wasn't by just some guy.It was, you know, someone over there who knew a lot about this stuff,saying that, especially the Iranians,if they just decided to hit all these desolination plants
21:11all up and down the Gulf,they could just shut down those countries,to force a mass exile of those populations,that they would not be able to rebuild them in timeto start drinking fresh water again.They would have to flee.And where would they even go?And they really, you want to talk about like playing Trump cards and all that,
21:32they could just shut down the drinking waterand the agricultural water for many of those states.You know, I don't know what kind of natural freshwater resources Saudi has or what,But apparently a lot of those smaller states on the Gulf have nothing.Yeah.Seawater.Pretty much all of the Gulf states, dude.Like, I think the lowest dependency on desalination that I saw was like 85%.
21:57Oh, man.Yeah.So, I mean, you're talking about tens of millions of people would have to flee, like, within months.It would be a total chaos.And it's obvious that Iran doesn't want to do that.You know, they could have pulled that card.They've had excuses so far.You know, they've put red lines down and,
22:14had them crossed and didn't take that step. And I think it's partly because, you know, I think Putinhas kind of passed this in the Ukraine war now, or at least he's getting there. But for a long time,like I really got the sense with him that he's like, yeah, the U.S. is totally unmanageable.They're an enemy. Fine. The U.K., fine. Poland and the Baltics and these border states fine.But there are, like, Europe in general, like, this war is going to end someday. And I need to be able to have arelationship with this place, like after his done, and that his actions are sort of, you know,you'd see that in his actions. And Iran is obviously thinking that way with regard to theArab and Gulf states, you know, is that there is going to be a day after the war and we're still
22:59going to have to live next to these people. And, you know, it's sort of, you know, doing that, too,is like, you know, it's a thing where, you know, I've sort of compared it before to like that option,the option to shut down the oil and gas coming out of the Gulf.And then the ultimate card of hitting the desalination plants and other infrastructure is sort of a non-nuclear weapon of mass destruction that Iran has at its disposal.But the problem is they only have one.And if they do it, okay, well, now that card's been played.And so now we're on the other side, you know, of that in a war now where they're really just kind of like economically and militarily, at least over a long term, like kind of outgunned.And I don't think, I just don't think they want to do that.
23:52They've shown absolutely no signs that they're looking to escalate like that.And I would even say, I think that you've seen actions taken by Israel and arguably the United States that seem intended to bait them into doing.and you know i i don't know what the gulf countries think about that um but they're the ones i meanit's not an accident that cutter and you know umman that these are the ones that these are thecountries that are really trying to get this thing wrapped up i mean they're the ones sufferingfrom this Israelis yeah sort of iranians yes sort of um but you know the gulf countries i meanthis is their whole livelihood, their whole economy. Everything is kind of, you know, being grounddown here. So, yeah. Man, all right. Well, listen, another one of our sponsors, a sponsor again
24:49from last year is expat money, and they have their big conference coming up relatively soon.But this is, you know, I read a piece, and I'm sorry to admit it was the New York Times. I have moreNew York Times stories today, but what are you going to do? I read a thing about how a lot moreAmericans are leaving the country. In fact, last year was the first time that there was a netdecrease in the population of the United States. And part of it was immigrants leaving and beingdeported. But part of it also was Americans fleeing the cost of living here. And, you know,we just had new inflation numbers as 4.something percent. You know, on an annual rate is the latestnumber for this month coming in. On top of, you know, already ridiculously high prices and a
25:34part of that is not actual price inflation, but just higher prices in fuel and other things like thatbecause of the war, of course. So whatever. Anyway, everybody loves America, but first things first,there are people who obviously are interested enough in protecting their family that they'reinterested in diversifying out of this country and finding at least other places to park theirmoney to buy property and possibly even get citizenship or whatever it takes.Well, Mickelthorpe is the guy who is the expert on all this stuff.He's a really good guy.I know him well.
26:12And he'll teach you all about it.It's expatmoney.com.And with that, in fact, I want to show you this clip, Daryl.It's almost unbelievable except, you know, it's not.This is the president of the United States of America.in here, dude, watch this.I will.You can serve, Mr. President,
26:37about the latest inhalation numberwhich came out this morning.Could that be a...No, I love it.The numbers were right.You know what I really love?I love the relationship.You know why?
26:46Because as soon as this war is over,you know, I can say it now.Something you didn't know.Do you know we've been taken out?Whatever.Anyway, he just says nothinguntil the end.He says, it's all worth it because
26:59now Iran is not going to be able to havea nuclear weapon.That's where it ends.Yeah.And I love inflation.I love the inflation.The president of the United States sayswhen that inflation, that means
27:16the price of bacon and eggsand bread for people's families.Right?That means the cost of getting to work.That's the margin of even going to workfor some people.Yeah.Right.
27:30I mean, God.For Donald Trump and the class of which he's a part, you know,the things that are listed in the Consumer Price Index comprise about 0.001% of his annual spending or annual income.And to him, inflation, you know, has always meant the value of the massive debts that he's holding on things goes down.And the value of the assets that he's holding goes up.And so that's what it means to people like him.And so I can understand why he would say that.But, you know, it reminds me of this,
28:09there's this, you ever seen a show 30 Rock?There's, um, yeah.And Al-Baldwin is like the CEO-type character, right?And he's very detached from sort of.I'm thinking third rock from the summer.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is 30 Rock.So he's like this CEO type.Oh, the one with the lady.
28:26Yeah, yeah, yeah.Yeah.And very detached from, like,like, you know, normal working people's reality.So he's talking to his nanny and trying to renegotiate, like, the price or whatever.And so he says, okay, listen, you know, like she comes to an offer with him wanting double the money, right?And so he says, listen, let's say you go down to the store and talk to the grocery concierge.And you want to buy a sack of potatoes, which costs, I don't know, $400.
29:00Now, it wouldn't be any fair if they gave you the same amount of potatoes and charged you $800.That's obvious like a farcical version of it.But I mean, there is a lot of that.Like, he doesn't understand what it really means for a dollar, you know, a 25% increase from $4 to $5 for gasoline.For people out there who go through 10,000, 100,000 gallons of diesel every year for their small business or whatever.he just has no concept of that stuff.You know, I don't think he particularly cares.No, he doesn't.
29:36And inflation means that, well, at least the crash ain't come yet.And so, you know, from his point of view,you want to stave off that crash as long as possible,let it fall on the other guys watch.It's another version of what we were talking about with it being impossible,sort of it's baked into our system to make it impossible for a president to,back out of a crappy war because then he's going to be the guy who lost it.It's the same thing here.
30:04Like, you know, every president just has an interest in kicking the economic candown the road to the next administration if they can, you know?Absolutely right.I always thought it was poetic justice that at least the crash of 08 happened on Bush's watchwhile he was still in the chair.Couldn't blame it all on the next guy,which the next guy ruined a lot of things in his own way with all of his bailoutsand all of his stimulus and all of his horribleness.
30:27at least the crash happened onW. Bush's watch. He deserved thatfor sure. Because it was his fault.But yeah,as far asTrump and inflationand all of that,the problem
30:45for Americans, I mean,you know, how much that means in terms ofhousing costs and justeverything else.But yeah, I don't know.I guessI wanted to get your thoughts onI'm sure you saw this, but our friend of the show, Trita Parsi,
31:05do you see this piece?Oh, yeah.About the Trump administration, potentially targeting him,investigating him for hilarious, like supporting America's enemies,is what they said in the article,because he's been, I don't know, like a lifelong critic of the government of Iranthat chased his family to Sweden.It's so ridiculous.
31:26And, you know, he's such a sort of just a distinct.like stand-up guy that going after him is like,it's all bad, you know, deporting some Columbia studentbecause they're organizing an anti-Israel protest is bad too.This is like, I mean, it's really,somebody in the comments said it well.This is like really like just another major just mask-off moment.I mean, this is just dissent.
31:48Because, I mean, I would hate to, you know,you want to think that someone like Trita,and I think that, you know, from what I know of him,that he would be this way, that he's going to say what he has to say.And if the consequences come, they come.But still, man, like, not everybody's going to be like that.And they're going to see just the article of them potentially investigating.And they're going to be a little more careful in their next interview.
32:14You know, and that's the goal of stuff like this.And it's really infuriating.I know.Yeah, this is something I talked about with him.These rumors were going around back a few months ago.and his posse was,well,just try to stay as visible as possible
32:32so that it's,you know,as outrageous as possibleif it does come.And so,you know,there's also a real riskthat they could arrest him
32:40and hold himfor whatever period of timebefore kicking him out of the countryand this kind of thingas, you know,the process being the punishmentand that kind of thing.So,
32:49dude,those two girls who Laura Lumer outedas being tangentially relatedto Soleimani,who, as far as I know, they still denyand no actual proof has been shown.There's people being held in Texas.Right.
33:03Yeah, I just read that today.I think it was the girl in her father or something.It's crazy.Yeah, and look, and you're right about Trita is a good dude,and he's been around a long time.I mean, I've known him for almost 20 years or something.You know, he was the founder of NIAC,the National Iranian American Council.
33:22And, you know.You're the plank owner of Quincy, too, right?Yeah, he was wonderful.Quincy, like, Quincy is a Coke project, right?Yes.Well, it was.I don't know if the Coke still.Yeah, but originally, like when it got started up.
33:35And it's like, okay, yeah, the guy who co-founded an organization that was a Coke project.Just such a dangerous anti-establishment, you know.It was so stupid, dude.And look, there are so many good Iranian Americans like him who, which I wish he'd gotten his citizenship a long time ago.but there's so many guys like him who do not support the Ayatollah regime,nor did they support the monarchists or the M.E.K. cults or any of these craziestrying to foment war against their former country, you know,and he's always stood on the side of peaceful negotiation and resolution of these conflicts.
34:15He's the guy I tell people all the time, you've got to read treacherous alliance.Yeah.It is just, you know, this foundational text for understanding the true relationshipbetween America, Israel, and Iranand what it's all about.And it ain't radical Islam, man.It's national interests and the poor.It's crazy because it's not as if he's some kind of firebrand.
34:37You know, he criticizes the war,but I've seen a hundred of his interviewssince this war started.We've interviewed him.I interviewed him.It, you know, he's always presenting it from a standpoint ofthis is a terrible idea for the United Statesbecause X, Y, and Z.
34:54reason, Zick, it's, yeah, it's just, it, I have a smile on my face because it's one of thosethings where, you know, it's like a gallows humor kind of thing. It's so dark that you laugh,but like, it just, it really is ridiculous and I hope it doesn't go anywhere. Yeah. Well,says here I've interviewed him 51 times over these years. Uh, beginning when, let's see,beginning in 2010 would be the first one on the dial here. So 15 years ago.good dude 16I can count real goodyeah and that is
35:32absolutely an outrage and it just goes toshow you know this is the kind of thing that happensin wartime is that people getto pretend that people they don't like our enemiesand violate their rightsand it's one of the main reasons why to stayout of war is becauseyou know as Norman Dodd said back
35:48in what 1910Norman Dodd wasoh no no he is in the one who said thishe later quoteto them. Norman Dodd was the investigator for the original House on American Activities Committee,and he would investigate the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And he said it was foundedon the question, in 1910, it was founded on the question of, is there any means more effectivethan war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people? And then they studied that for a year,
36:20and they came back in 1911, and they said, no, there isn't. So next project, how do we getAmerica into a war.And that was how, you know,people can find that interview of Norman Doddbeing interviewed by G. Edward Griffin, I believe,still. And so, yeah, that is the point.But what if you want to conservewhat's best about your society
36:41and you don't want the life of your entire peoplealtered by these horrible new republic liberals,then you stay out of war.That would be the opposite, you know,if you wanted to takethe negative advice from those cooks then.But yeah, soyeah, these things happen.
37:05What was I going to say?I don't know.Well, as long as we're on civil liberties here,let's talk about this for a second.This is also in the stupid times.Trump picks new intelligence chiefafter the revolt over Pulte.Apparently, that guy was from
37:20the farming bureauor whatever thing,but he was a Trump loyal.list, but everybody flipped out and apparently enough that Trump changed his mind.And he's now going to put in this guy who's the U.S. attorney for Manhattan to take the job as DNI.I find myself wondering what that's really about, you know, because, okay, like, I'm sure he doesn'thave any experience and people were concerned about that. But I mean, you know, people look at Pete Hegsess in charge of the Pentagon.They were worried that he wouldn't be able to be persuasive on the FISA thing.
38:05But then I also read that it's too late for the anyway.I had a story here somewhere that said, yeah, oh, here it is right here,is House rejects Bill to expand this spy power or to extend this bypower all but assuring elapse.They've left out.So now this is crucial.This is the FISA 702.Well, it should be crucial.They explain at the end of the article that actually they have this kind of emergency stopgap thing that kicks in.
38:42Should it sunset, a built-in safety mechanism would most likely enable it to continue operatingbecause of the way they timed the certifications and things.Okay, well.But what FISA says is.702 does is it allows for the FBI to tap into the NSA's hall.And the NSA, of course, has a writ, you know, general warrant on the entire population ofmankind outside of the United States.But if you have foreigners on the phone or communicating by whatever electronic means
39:19with people in the United States, whether citizens or just other types of U.S. persons,then those people are protected.And the NSA, for example,is supposed to not be allowed to look at who those names areunless they have a specific reason tothat then they would turn it over to the FBIwho would have to go to a court to unmask it or whatever.But under 702, the FBI can basically go trolling around
39:48inside the NSA's hallwhere they can find out all this informationabout the Americans on the other side of those conversationswithout having a judicial check on the thing,and which the whole thing is unconstitutionalunder the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978,which itself grants the governmenta wide unconstitutional leash on surveillance in the first place.
40:11Back during the Russia gate thing, you know,in the first Trump administration.Oh, shit, what I do.And all that.I didn't mean to unclic you there.I meant to unclic that New York Times article.Say that again, Bechtary who's what?the first Trump administration when Russia Gate was hot.
40:28You know, there was a lot of stuff.Obviously, people were talking about the NSA spying, 702s, FISA, all that stuff.And one of the stories that came out, I, gosh, I can't remember any specifics about it at all,except the general idea of the story was there's a bunch of examples of agents who were going in and running queriesjust on people that they had personal problems with, you know, that they, and it's not,Not that like, oh, that's so evil that we can.It's that the system is set up in a way to make that possible.It just shows you how right for abuse it is.
41:03I mean, and even things like, you know, I think they probably violate the, you know,the regulation against spying directly on Americans anyway.But even if you are somebody who believes that the NSA holds to that, holds to that rule,I wouldn't, I wouldn't believe for a second that they don't have workarounds, you know,that the British,listen to Americans that you're interested in.And then you have a line set up between two Brits that we monitor, because that'sforeign intelligence gathering, and they talk about the thing that we want, you know,
41:36like they'll always find workgrounds or that kind of stuff.So, yeah, I mean, they had the two hop rule.But under the two hop rule, that means that anyone were on your contact list,anyone you've ever contacted.And then anyone that any of them.have ever contacted.And then anyone that any of them have ever contacted.Boy, that's, you get pretty far in two hops.
42:02You know what I mean?You can cover the entire population simply because, you know, the two hop is, okay,two hops from me, right?Two degrees removed.So Scott and all my other friends and then all of their family and friends and everybodythat they ever met or talked to.But then what you can do is now you've got, I don't know,10,000 people like you're on a list.
42:23and you're two degrees out,and you can say, you know what,actually, we need to open another investigationon this person.They're a person of interest.Oh, we just got two more hops,and you can just keep doing that forever.I mean, you cover everybody, you know?
42:36Yep.Yeah, which is how they do it.And by the way, regarding something that you saidright before that about the hopping thing on the taps,about the ease of their ability to, you know,surveil whoever they want,including ex-girlfriends or boyfriend,and whatever, all of that kind of thing.
42:55It reminded me of the anecdote.I don't remember the source exactly who he was talking to,but I'm virtually certain it was Edward Snowden.It may be in the documentary by the lady,but I don't think so,because this is too substantive for her crappy documentary.Poitrous.She didn't have any substance in that stupid thing.
43:13But there's some interview,oh, I know, I bet it was, no.Maybe it was Edward Snowden talking about the Oliver Stone movieabout him. He's beingkind of interviewed about it and then he's liketalking about it, you know, about this scene.Something like that. BecauseI'm not just referring to the fictionalized
43:33version. This was somethingfrom Snowden. I do remember that.Wherehe's talking about, you know, logging intoan NSA computer terminal isjust the same as getting on the internet for anything,right? Except thatessentially their
43:48search bar, under their search bar,they can just search for all ofDarryl Cooper's emails.And then a page will, you know, come up with like, oh, well, here's this email account.You just log in here and whatever kind of thing.And it's all automatic.It's all done for you.They can search for, you know, things that you wouldn't even think of being searchable
44:09from here.But when you work for them, yeah, you search for every place that Darrell Cooper's car hasbeen for the last however many years or every place your phone has been.Everyone your phone has been with or whatever.you can just search all this stuff like it's a Google searchon your little terminal there.And essentially, you know what I mean?It's like, and there's no blocks on it.
44:33Yeah, whatever.Secure app you think you're using or anything,that thing is that it's nothing for the NSAor a sophisticated state actor to break your.So everybody always needs to keep that in mind, by the way,if it wasn't already obvious,that when you're on signal or something,that's great.
44:49It's going to, you know, protect you from hackers.you know, maybe, you know, some hacker group that wants to blackmail you or something,it's not going to protect you from a state actor.Do you not even imagine that.Right.Dude, the level of sophistication of our signals intelligence now is, I mean, when I would be,back in, I want to say it was 2013, I was out providing support for the destroyer that,you remember back and I think it was, it was in late 2013.
45:232013, there were two simultaneous operations. Delta did one in Libya and Seal Team 6 did one inSomalia. And the Delta one went fine. The Seal Team 6 one turned to a big firefight and they barelygot out of there because the intelligence had been leaked. But the reason we knew what was going onand picked the time to like actually go strike, because we've been, the SEAL team was onboard with us for a few weeks, but waiting for the go signal.We had submarines in the water, miles offshore, that were monitoring all of their cell phone towers, all kinds of other.I mean, it's super sophisticated, dude.And, yeah, it's just, it's the world we live in.
46:09You know, you have to always, like, operational security is important, but don't ever think that that means, you know, using this or that app or, you know, it's just, unless you whispered into your spouse's ear.That is public information if the right person wants it.Yeah.Hey, word to the USS Liberty, man.This week was the anniversary of that.Did you see?Jock shared out the episode on June 8th that he did with the guys.Yeah.
46:40I swear, I will always, I mean, I love Jock anyway, but I will always love him for that.Like, he knew 100% that how that was going to go over with, you know, with certain people.People not be really.He's a seal.He's a Navy guy.Yeah.A very highly respected one.Yeah.
47:00And I think that's why they've just tried to ignore itinstead of actually going after him for anything.He was able to sort of play the angle of like, look,Darrell and I are both Navy guys.And this was a naval incident that took place,the biggest attack on a U.S. ship.And, of course, we're going to talk to these guys.And he let him tell their full storm.
47:19You saw you were there, actually.And the fact that he's still sharing it out there on June 8th, letting people know that it's there.Like, he's a real dude, man.I always love that guy.Yeah.Yeah, man, I've done a lot of interviews with those guys over the years.I was going to reach out to Phil Turney this week, but I've just been so busy.Maybe I still will tomorrow.
47:41I think I have some open space tomorrow.I already have three or four interviews tomorrow.But over the years, if people want to check the archives at Scott Horton.org,I got interviews of Ron Kukal, who unfortunately is.no longer with us, but with Phil Turney andBowman and, oh man, I'm sorry, I'm blanking on everybody's name, but I've donethis. And you know what? Google hates my website, man. I don't know why.Maybe use the native search bar thing there might help.
48:09Just search USS Liberty there, but I gotat least a good probably eight or ten interviews about it.But yeah, anyway, here's one that's fun.I think people remember this,but they might not remember the context, really,here. Court overturns convictionstied to the Whitmer kidnapping plot.Well, that's tied to,
48:31along with a bunch of acquittalsthat came in. I think onlyone guywasconvicted in the end,Joseph Morrison.And they gave flawedjury instructions, they say here.
48:47The thing is everyone, I think,remembers even, you know,Benzinger who was from I forgot he ended up writing for the New York Times but he waswriting for a prominent liberal site I'm sorry I can't remember exactly which one it was anymoremaybe nah I don't remember could have been the nation or something but anyway they did a big storyabout how 10 of the 12 involved in this plot to kidnap and murder the lady governor of Michiganthe Democratic,Lady Governor of Michigan,
49:21were FBI informants,and the other two were their marks.And a bunch of these guys were acquittedbecause it was shown at their trialthat they had completely cut and editedand spliced the audioand made it sound like conversationsthat took place on the way there,
49:37or that happened after the fact,had taken place on the way there,which totally changed the contextand made them seem guilty.They got totally busted.And, by the way,Ken Silva was pointing out thatOne of the prosecutors involved in this was involved in the investigation into the assassination of the attempted assassination of the president in Pennsylvania in July of 24.
50:02Anyway, this whole thing was a ridiculous hoax, but remember the point, martyr made.The point is, this hoax was unveiled by the American secret police in October of 2020.This was their big October surprise.The same guys who we now knowhad possession of the Hunter Biden laptopbeginning in November.Well, we, let me check.We know.
50:34And they had it since April.And they had it in December of 19.Of 19, okay.Of 19.So they knew about it for virtually a year,for 11 months.And they had it in their possession,for at least 10 months
50:49before they quashed the RepublicansOctober surprise, or squash I guess.The Republicans October surprisecensored the New York Post,totally marginalized the evil Giuliani,but still he wasn't wrong in this case,and completely crushed this storyof the Hunter Biden laptop
51:08and all the corruption in it,including confirmation, by the way,of exactly what Donald Trump saidhe was concerned aboutin his so-called perfect phone callabout the corruption where this gas company in Ukrainehired Hunter Biden for the purpose of him using his influence in Washingtonto get Washington to use their influence in Kiev to obstruct justice
51:31and shut down criminal investigations into their criminality.And all of that was on the laptop in the FBI's possessionduring his whole impeachment on that basis.And then again, months later in October,right before the election,Julianni has this big October surprise and theycompletely destroy it. The same goons,the same secret police agency
51:56frames these idiot Trump supporters.I mean, this is hardly fair,but frame them for this supposed plot against this governorin order to drum up. And it did drum up a lot of publicitythat see how these Trump supporters are. These aren't your normalRepublicans, man. These are terrorists. They're white,supremacists and militia cooks and they were going to kidnap and hang and behead the corpse of thepoor Democrat lady governor and whatever cut all 40 of her baby's heads off and hang their corpse
52:28from close lines and whatever it takes and I guarantee that cost him a point or two here and therewhether that alone was the election I don't know but was that part of a massive influence operationby the FBI I mean what the hell Russia gate was too right they were totally cooperatingwith Hillary Clinton during that whole time before the election of 16.But this is just, I'm sorry.This is just absolutely beyond outrageous that the Bureau of Federal Investigations,Federal Bureau of Investigations, gets to behave in this way,an act purely like some kind of Gestapo secret police force
53:06in trying to rig national elections against favored presidential candidates of major parties and whatever.Boy, is the national security state operating in a post-pestral.constitutional type of situation now.And Trump is a very post-constitutional president, too, but that doesn't give them the right.He's the only member of the national executive branch stands for election.The only one.And, you know, the CIA, the FBI, they're not even in the Constitution anywhere.You might be able to infer the power of the president to have FBI for his Department of
53:40Justice, but maybe not.Yeah, two things on that.One, I do have to say, in defense of my man, H.B. Hunter Biden, the Trump administration is making that Burisma stuff and everything else.No doubt. Wild's play at this point. You're right. You're sure right about that, but it's still true. And it's still a major FBI cover up and obstruction there.The second thing, though, to the more serious point, you know, this issue was for a lot of people, including myself.I mean, this was like the thread I wrote on Twitter that went viral that kind of propelled me at next level was about this.And it wasn't a, you know, it wasn't a sort of a detailed thing going through.And then Comey wrote this to McCabe, whatever.
54:29What it was was just sort of pointing out how important this issue is and is to actual the people who care about it.You know, this is not something that is a scandal.This kind of, this breaks the republic unless it is smashed, you know.And that, I mean, it was enough for me and a lot of people to continue to support Trump in 20 and 24.Purely, I mean, not that I was ever going to support the Democrat side, like with who they were putting up.But, you know, my thinking was, and I think a lot of people felt this way, was just this kind of behavior from the security state cannot be rewarded.They have to lose.They have to.
55:14And, you know, the joke's kind of on us.like they lost and now Trump does whatever they want.I especially, I never voted for the guy or supported him because, you know, the guy's theLakud Party member. That ain't good enough for me. But I definitely, I especially wanted him towin in 20 more than even in 24, although it was actually just as important for other reasonsin 24, I guess. But it really would have been better if he'd been reelected in 20.because that was after four years of fever pitch.He's a Nazi, he's a white supremacist, he's a Russian agent, he is a traitor,
55:52he leaked secrets to the Russians about an Israeli spy and ISIS and just whatever on,you know, turned up to 11 for four years.And if he had won by a solid 10% anyway in November of 20,that would have just been the most beautiful repudiation of the national security state.every single female anchor on cable TV news and just and all of the rest of them too,but especially them and just would have been the greatest of absolute screw use to all of them,which we did get that in 24 with his election in 24. We did get that,but it was not quite as harsh as it would have been if he'd been reelected in 20, you know.
56:39Yeah.There's a bunch of people who would have taken it personally.who it wouldn't have been about them.You know what I mean?That they would have been upset too, but oh, well,it was really, it was the cable TV news ladieswho deserved to be punished with Trump's re-electionmore than anything else.
56:54After all of their absolute hysteriaabout his status as a Russian spyand all of their crap, you know?But anyway, I'm always laughing Democrats loose,but I could never supportreally anybody but Ron Paulor potentially Thomas Massey for president.I don't even know if I could support
57:12Rand Paul because I just know how he is man um you know on the broader issue of uh thesethese types of operations like I don't what was the last forwarded attack that wasn't one ofthese frame up jobs like I didn't even imagine like think of one and um it's gonna blow up the subwayin New York he was not a put up job he was a legit guy and they caught his ass.Hey.Now that was like in 2003.The thing that is most galling about it and just most brazen, I guess, about like the way that they do it is very often.It was in a book that was about the FBI from like 2001 to the early 2010s, like in just all the stuff they had been doing primarily with, you know, with mosques and Muslim organizations and individuals and stuff.
58:08And it was about that.but it carried that one of the things that it mentioned in there,and it gave a bunch of examples,is that these guys, it's not as if they hear of a group of guysthat's plotting an attack,and they're like, well, we're going to go and, you know,infiltrate that group,or we're going to work over this person and whatever.
58:28It's that literally they go fishing for peoplewho fit the psychological profile of somebodywho can be manipulated into something like this.Right.And it's like, I mean,again, that's something that's like, it's so over the top in terms of just how, how it sounds likesome Dr. Evil, you know.I don't find a book about that.
58:48That was going to be my first book, but at that time, I didn't realize how easy it would beto just do it myself, and I couldn't find a good publisher for it.I had a co-author, and we just couldn't find a good publisher for it.But yeah, I mean, you can kind of, you're used to this stuff, he could tick him off,the Detroit Five, the Liberty City Seven, the Fort Dix pizza plot, the Brooklyn Synagogue plot,the JFK Airport Fuel Depot plot,the remote control plane attack on the Pentagon plot,the Garland, Texas plot that got a security guard shot
59:17that was provoked by the FBI.The Lodi pole vaulting plot,asked me another time,the Portland Christmas tree plot.And that's just a few of the most famous onesthat are put up jobs by the FBI.And there's a great book about thisby Trevor Aronson called The Terror Factory.
59:36He started out as an article at Mother Jones.And then it's a book.And he says there's more than 250 of these,where it's clear that the guy had no money,no capability,didn't even know what the deal was.It's like, listen, man,here's $20,000.
59:51Say you love Osama into this microphone, dumb, dumb.And then they go, okay, I guess I love Osama.If you're going to buy me a plane ticket out of here,or buy my mom foot surgery,or whatever thing it is, and they just scan.Dude, sometimes some of the examples are like even,even darker than this.that in a way where, you know, there were examples where they'll go into a mosque and the guy
01:00:13will just become, you know, he's a member of the mosque now and he's attending, right? And he goes inand he waits until he can identify a guy who has no friends who's not smart, is a stupid guy,and really just lonely, depressed. And then he goes and becomes his friend. And he just becomes his friendfor like six months. They don't talk terrorism. They don't talk anything like that. And then oncetheir friends, once he's his onlyfriend in the world, right?This guy who, this agent who is like a skilled,trained operator and psychological manipulation
01:00:50goes and starts togradually work this guyinto a lather to get him. Like thatis just so disgusting, dude.I mean, it's like evilto do something like that. Yeah, and you knowwho is the pioneer of all of that more than anyone?Robert Mueller.
01:01:07He was the head of theFBI during George W. Bush. And see, you know, the war in Iraq did cause blowback terrorism. Andthere have been real terrorist attacks. You ask, have there been any ones that got busted thatweren't fake? But San Bernardino, that wasn't a put-up job. Orlando wasn't a put-up job.There was a guy that luckily failed, but tried to blow up a marathon in New York and New Jersey.There was, of course, the Boston Marathon attack. There have been other very real terrorist attacksthere was the attempted underpants bombing, of course, which luckily failed,which, in fact, intelligence agents helped the guy get on the plane in the Netherlands,
01:01:46not knowing how to bomb in his pants and wanting to follow him and see who he talked to when he got here.As the State Department admitted, they want to see who he talked to when he got here.He almost blew up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.But in the meantime, it took a while.You know, Al-Qaeda blew their load on September 11th.They didn't need to keep attacking us.They got their Afghan war.It worked.
01:02:12And so it took a few years for anybody to be motivated enoughby our new round of wars to go ahead and start this kind of second wave of attacks.But, Darrell, they needed your aunt and uncle to be afraid in the meantime.So they needed Robert Mueller to entrap these idiots, just like you described.You know, find the slowest kid down at the Islamic bookstore and work on themand work on them and work on them until you trick him into saying something stupidand then give him life in prison and parade him on TV and say,oh my God,
01:02:44look at the never-ending parade of terrorists that we parade before you.It's the most cynical thing, dude, it sucks.It's really just shameful shit.All right, we got to go.We got to go, dude.Let me show you this, though.This here is Scott Horton Brand coffee.And don't worry, I share the spoils with my buddy Darrell Cooper.
01:03:02It's really good drinking, man.I have this stuff every morning.and I love the camerafalls you around.Oh,I hate that.Here I am with,oh,
01:03:15look at me.Look at Scott Horton coffee.What the hell?There you go.It's good, man.What you do is you grind it upand or you get it ground alreadyand you drink it in the morning.
01:03:30Hold on,let me have it.I don't know what you're doing over there.Mr. Cooper.We're also brought to you, everyone,by the Martyr-made podcast.That is Darrell Cooper's great podcast.History Made Human.
01:03:44Listen all about the miners of West Virginia,all about the cultists of Guyana,learn all about blacks in the public schools in the Northeast.Learn all about the world wars.And now this one here, man, is called Enemy,the Germans War, about World War II.And you're going to really get.a kick out of that. And by the way, hey, look, here's my podcast, is also on Substack,
01:04:09the Scott Horton Show. And then also check this out. I'm back in business, Darrow Cooper,LibertyStickers.com. It used to be just the bumper sticker.com, but it changed it.But anyway, I sold this company in 2004. And I would just make up stickers from time to time,but like, I got other jobs. I don't know. But Rick, he kept the company going this whole time.The bumper sticker.com is still a company. The guy sold it to. But he decided,hey man, you want Liberty stickers back?And I says, yeah. So I got Liberty stickers back.So can you see? I got America First and collectivism kills
01:04:41and fight back while you still can and end apartheid in Israel.And I want you to be a taxpaying, welfare collecting, empire supporting, sniveling little bitch.Lockheed Martin, every time Israel kills a child, we make 50 bucks.Military recruiters lie.oh woohooI'm so scaredgovernment please save meand unlike that
01:05:07lots of anti-Israel stufflots of civil liberty stuffwhat happens in Vegasstays in a government database foreverUS Army die for Israelanyway you get the ideait's all Liberty Stickerswhich is on Etsy I don't know how to get there
01:05:25Liberty Stickers dot uh sorry Etsy.comslash shopsslash libertieswe'll have LibertyStickers.com forwardover there everybody is what we'll doSo you can go and and buy stickers there.All right.And then also stop by the Scott Horton Academy on your way,
01:05:41buy books, including our latest by Ken Silva at the Libertarian Institute.And that's it.See you next Thursday night.We're live here on Thursdays.Thanks, Darrell.This has been Provoked with Darrell Cooper and Scott Horton.Be sure to like and subscribe to help us beat the propaganda algorithm.Go follow at Provoked underscore show on Ex and YouTube.
01:06:09And tune in next time for more Provoked.
There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click any sentence in the transcript to leave one.