Shaun Newman Podcast - #1010 - Luongo - Krainer - Kokinda

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

We discuss all things Iran. Tom Luongo is a former research chemist, amateur dairy goat farmer, libertarian, and economist whose work can be found on Zero Hedge and Newsmax Media. He hosts the Gold Goats ‘n Guns Podcast.Alex Krainer is a Croatian national, former hedge fund manager, author and contributing editor at Zero Hedge. Susan Kokinda is a long-time political organizer and author associated with Promethean Action, a movement founded in 2024 by former Lyndon LaRouche collaborators to defy oligarchy, revive American industrial capacity, and promote the "American System" of tariffs, manufacturing revival, and producer culture. Tickets to Cornerstone Forum 26’: https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone26/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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And if you're enjoying the show Share with a friend All right let's get on a tale of the tape Our first guest is a former Research chemist amateur dairy goat farmer Libertarian and economist Whose work can be found on Zero Hedge In Newsmax Media

He hosts the Gold Goats and Guns podcast The second of Croatian National former head fund manager, author, and contributing editor at Zero Hedge, and our third, a longtime political organizer and author associated with Promethean action. I'm talking about Tom Luongo, Alex Krainner, and Susan Kokinda. So buckle up, here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. This should be interesting.

I got Alex Kramer, Tom Luongo, Susan Kokinda. I want to say Tom and Alex, this might be the first time we've ever had anyone join us in the, I don't know, I think this is the 24th time, if I'm keeping track, which I am. So I guess, Susan, welcome to this trio of thoughts here. I mean, I was sitting on the weekend. Everything starts going on in a rant. And I go, well, I had a plan of what I was doing this week. It kind of went out the window.

And so I reached out to all of you, because I thought it would be interesting to hear what you have to say on this, I don't know, recent developments. and Alex just topped out. So Tom, Susan, Alex, whatever you figure, I'm just going to sit back because I'm curious all three of your thoughts on this. I think everybody wants the other one to go first,

I think is what's coming on here. And since, you know, I'm the resident asshole, I'll go ahead and get started. We saw this coming. Trump was signaling this all week, all the last two weeks. I think, I'm not sure if I've had a chance to talk with either of you about these things, but the shows that I've done with other people, maybe with you, I've spoken to so many people recently. I can't keep it all track. But it just seemed to me like this was a replay of Venezuela. We do blanket coverage of the area with air and naval assets to ensure that there's no potential false flags over the, over the region. We negotiate as much as possible. I think in many ways a deal was made. I also think that some aspects of, I think the nuance is what's been lost in the first 72 hours of this. And pretty much what we would have expected in the original that there was going to be a decapitation strike of one form or another.

Now, whether it gets bigger than that is up to anybody's guess at this point. I know what I think, but I'd like to hear what the other ones have to say. Well, I think it's in part going to be a function of how the Iranians and which Iranians actually respond. But I think one way to look at this, I just finished my podcast. You know, one useful way of looking at this situation to kind of situate yourself is look at what the neocons are saying and the British. You know, they are not happy. You know, John Bolton is talking about how there is no strategy, how there is. the president doesn't know what he's doing.

I mean, if this were a regime, he said literally, I want regime change, but I don't think that's what this president is doing. After all, he's talking to the Iranians. One of the funniest contrasts was the Atlantic, which you can't get much more, you know, Trump derangement syndrome than that. And Applebaum had an article where she said, you know, Trump doesn't know what he's doing, you know, leaving the Iranians in the lurch.

And then Trump, believe it or not, calls the, Atlantic to give them an interview, you know, and drops the fact that he's actually talking, you know, that the Iranians want to talk and he will talk to them, which is not making John Bolton and Applebaum or Chatham House very happy. You know, Brownlee Maddox of Chatham House, airstrikes don't accomplish regime change. Well, you know, they're all operating in the world of this is your grandfather's regime change war. And, you know, Tom referenced Venezuela. I think Trump's intention, and it remains to see how this plays. out is what he did in Venezuela in a much more complicated, dangerous situation.

Just to add to one thing, I saw all that and I say that the New York Times, they were all on the same point. So was Washington, so was the Washington Post and for a lot of other people. It's all, oh my God, how can he not, you know, he has no strategy. And so that was the game that we were playing all weekend. When he multiple times said, the goal here is to remove these particular these things, these potential outcomes, and then the rest of it's up to the Iranian people decide what they want to do. And, you know, I will support that. And the minute everybody lays down their arms, we're good to go. I can't really be much clearer than that. Whether you agree with him or not, is a, you know, that's going to be the audio. But that he's been pretty

freaking clear. Alex, what do you think? Well, I'm afraid I'm going to make this discussion a little bit more interesting than usual. But I think that Trump cocked up massively in this case. I was, this is my didn't tell you so moment because I was convinced that he wasn't going to do it. And the reason why I was convinced that he wasn't going to do it is because I can't figure out what the upside is in this situation. But it's very obvious. that there's massive downside. Not only is there a massive downside, I think it could be,

I think this could turn out to be the fatal blunder that undoes everything that he's been trying to do. And I've been generally wholeheartedly supportive of most of what he's been trying to accomplish. I didn't know what to think about Venezuela, but I thought, okay, didn't do the regime change, there. He left the regime intact. He grabbed Maduro for whatever reason, and maybe there was a good reason for that. Here, in the middle of negotiations, he killed the supreme leader of Iran, who is their religious leader.

There was no way, you know, whoever convinced him that the people of Iran were going to pour into the street, overthrow the regime and then, you know, accept Shah Reza with flowers and a red carpet was completely wrong. I mean, if he asked me, I would have told him that's not going to happen. That's not how it is. And I'm sorry, Fong.

And so the Iranians said no face-saving attack, because this is, according to one of the Iranian MP that was involved in the negotiations, Trump's delegates were asking for another rerun of the June attack. You know, we strike a couple of your sites. You retaliate against one of ours. and we call it that, you know, and then we all declare victory, go our separate ways, and that's that. The Iranians said no. Their position hardened. Iranians are at home.

They have a way to sustain their war against the United States, against Iran, against whoever in their vicinity. they can take this for the long haul. The United States cannot take this for a long hole. You have a massive logistical problem. Remember how it went with the Taliban. It didn't go well. How it went with the Yemenis, with Ansarala. It didn't go well.

Iran is orders of magnitude more powerful than either of those enemies. And so see what happened now. Trump rightly, and this one, was a very hopeful development for humanity. He parted way with the European allies, with the, colonialist power like France and Britain. His administration explicitly and overtly embraced multipolar integrations, great news. Right now he's at war that he has no control over, and he's flanked by the dream team of Kirstarmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merrittz, and Benjamin Netanyahu. That's his allies now.

And he cannot, you realize. I'm going to disagree, Alex. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. If he were by himself, and I think this is what everybody wants to believe this because of the way this is laying out. because that's what they've been taught to believe. This is one, we have to go back to what you and I had disagreements about back during the 12-day War last year, which is seeing Iran as a monolith is the problem.

This is a definite attempt, and I think a very good one, because we're getting mixed signals out of the Iranian leadership at this point. We're getting IRGC scream, no, no, no, no, no. And we've got the civilian government going, we're still open to talks. and we're not going to close the straits. And yet the IRGC turns around and bombs one of their own boats in order to try and create this problem. The Gulf Cooperation Council all came out yesterday and said,

that's enough with this Iranian flailing and, and yell and screaming at everybody. Everybody's over this. And I think that while I agree with you that Iran is a much bigger problem than any, than we've seen in the past if it goes to that. I also don't think that Iran has any friends. And the Iranians are the ones who are actually isolated. The Russians are doing nothing. They stood down over their big defensive agreement that they signed last year

was worth exactly the piece of paper what was written on. The Russians said no. The Chinese have done nothing. The Saudis are actually supporting Trump in both in Iran and in Pakistan while they wipe out the leftovers of what Joe Biden left behind for the British in Afghanistan. That's happening at the same time. My read of the game board is that actually everybody has in all in all effect said that's enough. And we're done.

And if you and I can make the counter argument, I mean, I make the counter argument that there are actual like I see the I see the IRGC actually attacking. a whole bunch of British and French assets around the region as well. And that's why. One question. One question. When you say that's enough, that's enough of what? It's enough of the British and old colonial British and French strategy of access of resistance. Lebanon's government is talking about Hezbo, Hezbo being left, the military wing of Hezbo being left behind. This is all an extension of the exact same thing he did in Venezuela. It's an attempt to take out that second layer of chaos generation that the old powers want. And here, Starmers is in serious trouble.

The French look completely lost here. The Germans look completely lost. But Netanyahu went off to Berlin to not get killed. And the Israelis are getting punched in the mouth, just like last year. and but the but the IRGC has as as has exploded on everyone and everybody has turned around and said no when the CCC yesterday came out and said and said what they said I was like this this is looks like it's laying out exactly the way it needs to so but I'm still worried that this isn't over yet that could get worse that's that's true I mean this may not go you know this is not going to go this is

much more dangerous you know it's not a lean in and out like Venezuela. There's no doubt about that. But, you know, I think the, I mean, if you look at the British press or the other European press, this is not their rodeo. You know, they, they, they were outside looking in. Now they're, you know, I mean, they're under so much pressure, I think, that they're saying, okay, we got to jump on board. But you're seeing things, you know, you're seeing headlines, the new statesman, which is the Fabian Society. I remember the new statesman said, you know, this is the irretrievable break between the United States and Europe. You know, there's people talking about the fact that this is definitely the end of the special relationship between the United States and the British.

So this could end up. I don't disagree with Alex that if there's no sideways, it's going to be a disaster for Trump. Yeah. I mean, if it, you know, if it is not surgical, if it does not come to a relatively rapid end, the political implications of this are absolutely enormous. But I don't think this is him back in the old world, you know, playing regime change footsie with the Europe, you know, with the John Bolton Tony Blair model. The other thing I want to point out, I know if you guys saw any of this this morning, has been watching it pretty closely. Greece, Cyprus. Has anybody noticed that angle on this? The Greeks have moved into Cyprus,

have moved Friggas into Cyprus, and the Brits are all, and all the British bankers and everybody are vacating their half of the island. And like, this is now putting pressure on the Turks. It could also potentially make the Turks do something really dumb. Again, you know, if we map Erdogan, we've all been confused about Erdogan for years,

but if you just map Erdogan, Erdogan, Muslim Brotherhood, City of London, And Turkey's whole, I mean, I know that's like a gross oversimplification of Erdogan. But if you look at it from that perspective, it's very clear that a certain level, like Erdogan's been held in power by this entire architecture in order to eventually turn on the Russians. Because he's the one who controls access to the Black Sea. And, you know, what I've noticed from Trump, too, to two other things. things. One, he's he, before he did this, he removed all the tripwire troops from Syria.

Like, not only was Alton for shut down a few months ago, but we started seeing, uh, I saw, um, you know, convoys leaving Eastern Syria as well so that they couldn't be used as a, as a, as a, as a means by which to, you know, create a false flag, attack those, you know, attack those men and then, you know, force a, this thing to go side. And I've seen a lot of, you know, I just, to me, it just looks like he's, he's done the exact same thing that he did in Venezuela, which is the blanket coverage to stop the Israelis from doing something really dumb, right? Or, and or the British and or the French or any, or the Iranians themselves and then blame it on the United States and then, you know, create a situation where Trump has to go harder so that the neocons get exactly what they want. and they're not getting what they want. And again, they're not very happy. So this is not the same as last year where there was back and forth,

they, you know, Israel and Iran punched each other in the mouth. And then Trump and the Iranian said, okay, that's enough. Let's do the theater thing that we saw. And it's over. And then everybody gets to go, oh, yeah, this is far more dangerous than we thought it was. And the big up, wake up call, of course, was for the Israeli people to realize how dangerous this all is. I don't know what's happening. I mean, at this point, it just looks to me like it's just more of the systematic destruction of the IRGC, the axis of resistance and all of that, to get rid of all that.

Because that strategy is the uniquely British obsession with McKinder-style geopolitics. And while McKinder-style geopolitics is dominant in their thinking, it's also really dumb in the end of the day. But they're wedded to it. And so that's my read on the situation at this point. And I'm hoping that, you know, it all goes operationally to plan, or at least reasonably to plan. Because if things were really that bad, the Iranians would, the Iranian civilian arm of the government would not be continuing to want to talk with Trump. And so I don't know. Tom, there's a lot of siops.

and I'm hearing that Iranians want to negotiate, and then I'm also hearing that Iranians are refusing to negotiate. I don't know who's telling the truth. But you see, I was kind of thinking, well, maybe what Trump's going to do is like a symbolic theatrical exchange with Iranians in order to kind of give them a covert green light to go against Iran. But that's not what happened. I mean, they killed a supreme leader.

I mean, that really, that is really a catastrophic mistake. Because, you know what happened? No, no, it's not maybe. when a thing like this happens, even people who may have hated their leadership are going to close ranks behind the leadership because they perceive their country under attack. And you could see the turnout for his funeral was absolutely massive. That's support. That's not we want Reza Pahlavi. I don't think Reza Pahlavi is part of this equation.

I think that's part of the British equation to try and slip him in later. I they want me to knew all same as the old was I think what Trump has said explicitly is that you know whatever you want to do is fine and you know I'm willing to come to the table and end this as quickly as possible but the idea that you that this is that you're going to continue this to it's it's funny Alex I've thought about this a lot and I don't mean that to but like I've for a while now I've believed two things were completely true, that one, Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon, possibly with the help of North Korea for the IRGC, and that, too, that the fatwa against nuclear weapons was also real. I believe both of those things at the same time. I know they're

contradictory, but that's what tells me that there's a functional split at the top of, and Iran is not a monolith politically. This is something I talked to Joaquin Flores about a long time ago, And he agreed with me about that. And in some ways, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a monolith. And for these reasons, no, no more than the United States or any other countries are monolith. And so we have to be, we have to wonder at this point, um, you know, what the potential outcome could be. And we shouldn't, you know, we shouldn't you know, we shouldn't be in this place. That's, that's the problem. Well, because, you know, because if you, if you, if you, if you, if you,

started a regional war as a gamble because you don't know how it's going to turn out you've already made a mistake i i think this is a classic example of miss of of us misdefining what the what the what the situation is which is that we have states we're thinking in terms of states versus states we shouldn't be thinking versus state versus state we're thinking state is moving against non-state. We have a non-state actor war that has no care for political, arbitrary political boundaries. Okay. And it's that layer that we all talk about all the time and we understand what that is. It's no different than him helping and backing Mexico going after CN, a CJNG in central Mexico the other day or last week. Same thing. It's a non-state actor war. You have to think of

cartels as a in Mexico as that you have to think of the IRGC as that and if you frame it that way now the yeah Tom now that now now we have a logic to this that's how I'm getting no well you know Mexican government and the cartels are on the opposite side of the divide their enemies whereas IRGC is not on hostile terms with the, you know, they are part of the government. They are part of that state. Yeah, but there's a definite split between the civilian government and the civilian military and the IRGC. Yeah, but you know, once you, once you. Any more than like the Pakistani ISI is on board with the military.

There's a big split there too. One is backed explicitly by the Saudis, the other is backed by city of London. it's, you know, these countries are, are messy. Yeah, but you know, Claudia, Chambon is going to go against the cartels if she gets Trump's support. There is no way on earth that this Iranian civilian government will go against IRGC. And by killing the Supreme Leader, you just, you've just created that situation. Oh, we're under attack. This is war. And now the, the most hardcore faction of Iranian leadership can deal quick and dirty with any and all opposition.

So the country is going to go a lot more monolithic, not less. So this is why this was a colossal blunder. You've created something that you shouldn't have created. Not only that, but the worst part of all this is that he could – I don't. I don't know how he turns this into his favor. I don't know how he turns this into his favor in the midterms. I don't know how he avoids impeachment if he loses the midterms. And if he's impeached, he loses this time, because this is going to be for real.

This is not going to be one of those, you know, nothing burgers that's going to just create a lot of noise and result in nothing. This time, if he gets impeached, he's done. He's finished. Not only that, his whole legacy is done and finished. And the part that is absolutely heartbreaking to me is that I see if worst-case scenario, worst-case scenario is that you see the United States going right back to World Health Organization. USAID gets resurrected. LGBT ideology gets shoved on everybody's shows.

The United States will break up in the multiple countries before that happens. But here's a paradox. Here's a paradox, Alex. All the people who want to destroy Donald Trump, I mean, you take Ann Applebaum. You know, she is one of the ring leaders of authoritarian, you know, she's not directly in the transition integrity project, but you're certainly in the entire apparatus that tried to prevent Trump from getting elected in 2020

and in 2024. We all know who John Bolton is. You know who these characters are. The paradox, it seems to me, is why are they so pissed off and freaked out about what Trump is doing if this is going to be a colossal mistake, which is going to end up where you are suggesting it is?

I'm not denying that it can go sideways. But I think that you have to look at it in the context. This is a very, very different world than even the earlier strike. Because prior, you know, up until like a month ago, what, a couple of weeks ago, when Trump had that Board of Peace meeting, you basically had not much alternative in the world to no alternative actual structure emerging in the world to, the great game to geopolitics and so on. That Board of Peace meeting was really quite extraordinary because you saw that what Trump is bringing together is this amazing array of countries, which

does not include Europe, with the exception of Victor Orban, you know, Muslim countries, countries that used to be in the Soviet periphery, you know, obviously the Gulf countries, and many others who are saying, no, we're putting together a different kind of architecture for the world, one which is not run by the UN, it's not run by the globalists, it's run by sovereign nations. So, you know, which is not to say that I know how this situation in Iran is going to play out. But it's to say that it's happening in a different world than existed previously. And I think the potential for it to be resolved in a kind of Venezuela way. I mean, you said it yourself.

You hear one report that they're ready to negotiate and you hear another report that they're not going to negotiate. Well, maybe that implies there's more than one viewpoint in Iran. To weaken the one that doesn't decapitate, the one that doesn't want to negotiate. Susan, I don't disagree with anything you said. I completely agree. But this has gone sideways already. And I, you know, notice this. The pressure on Trump to go to war against Iran has been with his administration practically from the start.

And in June of 2019, he was under that pressure already. and this year, practically since he walked into the White House, the pressure has been building. And we even saw from, you know, some of these Epstein exchanges that they were talking about, you know, like if Trump is cornered like a rat, it wasn't that language exactly, but it was the context. He will attack Iran. You know, like, you could see that a certain class of people was maneuvering to...

I agree with it. They were conspiring to maneuvering him into attacking Iran. Notice this. There was no pressure of any of this sort at all on Clinton, on George W. Bush, on Barack Obama, on Joe Biden. They, you know, Joe Biden, he had the, he had the Congress, he had the White House, he had everything, he could have gone to war. Why didn't he? And why was there no pressure? on him to do it. You know why? Because everybody knows that it's political suicide, which is why I thought that there's no way. I see it the exact opposite way. As a as someone who really understands American domestic politics, Alex, I'm going to I'm going to pull rank on you,

my friend. I hate the go go. I'm interested. I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't find wrong. The argument is very simple. They were working with Iran and the British to create this globalist nightmare. This is the problem. Trump is the one saying that's enough. I said this last year and I continue to believe this insight is, is accurate. Iran's nuclear weapon was the Forever War. And if you want a subtext to everything that's been going on with the negotiations and everything else, it's that as we've pushed Britain and the EU into a corner, into Davos, the High Table, whatever you want to call them, they turned around and they saying to the IRGC push for a nuclear weapon. I honestly, finally, after all these years,

I can see that this would have been the moment where they were called up Ken Jonong, and try and cobble together a frigging nuke to, to, to threaten the world with, because that's all they had left. These people are crazy. They're cornered over Epstein. They're cornered over the silver and gold market. They're cornered over the midterms. Trump just like Trump was winning in every way in every theater other than like, the SAVE Act and dealing with Congress. But the longer Congress created, did what they were doing. He was building a very credible case that he could just declare a military emergency

over the midterm elections, station the National Guard and ICE at every polling station. And there would be no cheating because he was literally building that case in public. Okay, this, the political situation here in the United States was very crystal clear. He wasn't being backed into a corner here. he was on the offensive still. And that's the way I've been reading this for weeks now. And especially the way Scott Besson has been attacking the precious metals markets. And those two things simultaneously say to me, Iran was playing the exact same game.

They played with Trump for years. The same stupid shit that freaking Zelensky is doing. I want to negotiate. I want to negotiate. I don't want to negotiate. No, Russian, you've got to, you know, this stupid shit. back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Just because they're being told by the Europeans over and over and over again,

just wait Trump out. He's a, we're going to get to the midterms. We're going to neuter him. We're going to be done with him. And then we'll extend and pretend we'll get right back on program two years from now. That's, I've been seeing this to me. That's exactly what was going on. And Trump finally just said, you know what?

That's enough. And if there was, and if there was credible intelligence that the IRC was trying to push, was trying to then push to AIDA on this. Because I've been, you know, I've been operating under the assumption for the last eight years that North Korea built the frigging bomb, built the warhead and Iran built a ballistic missile, but they, but they, you know, but Iran paid for it. And if you want my honest opinion, that means that the British paid for it when you really stop to think about it. And now you put it all together and you're like, and this has been part of my calculus in this for a long, long time. And the problem is, unfortunately, for all of this, is a. we've listened to asshole Benjamin Netanyahu cry fucking wolf over the over Iran and having a nuclear weapon in a month so many times we're all sick of it so that when it possibly could have been the thing because we had finally because geopolitics had progressed to the point where

the people who were actually the creators of this stupid frigging story that we've all been blackmailed by for so freaking along finally got to the point where they had no other moves on the chessboard Yeah, I mean, I don't know that we know yet. You know, someday we will, someday we will know what triggered Trump's decision. But, you know, I agree with you, Tom. And it could be, it could be, you know, it could have been kind of a monkey trap trying to force his hand at this time. But I agree with you, Tom, that it's not because the, you know, he was.

was backed into a corner. It was the exact opposite when you just, you know, you look at the dismantling of this British imperial system. Look, I don't think it's at all coincidental that Andrew was arrested, you know, and then Lord Mandelson was arrested a couple of days later. We just resurrected something that was in WikiLeaks where when he was still a prince and he was still the trade ambassador, he was in Kyrgyzstan and the American ambassador leaked the cables, where he talks about Britain is back in the great game, the United States, this was 2008, so it was between two British-controlled administrations,

you know, the transition from Bush to Obama. But that, you know, the great game is back, the United States is part of it. and, you know, this time we're going to win. So, you know, he, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the mechanics of the great game. And that's all Andrew was and that's all Mandelson were. These are the mechanics of the great game. I, I don't think it's coincidental that they've just been taken down.

And that, frankly, the biggest blowback from the Epstein files is, for, precisely these networks in Britain that are completely freaked out over what Trump is doing because it is not their classic regime change operation. You know, you see stupid lefties. I saw some posts today. You know, this is the Epstein Classes war. No, it isn't. The Epstein class just got arrested in Great Britain, precisely the people who have set up this entire thing.

Because in the case of Iran, you're dealing with long, long, long standing British intelligence operations. And, you know, whether something precipitated Trump's decision on a time frame, which maybe he didn't want, I don't know. Again, we're going to have to wait probably for a long time to see what comes out. Or whether he basically said, like Tom said, that's it. you know, we have to end this British controlled capability, which is preventing, it's like the last peace in the Mideast, which is preventing an actual stable resolution of things, as was outlined at the Board of Peace Meeting. Or by the way, the Israelis were like the sticking out like the sore thumb. Everybody else at that Board of Peace meeting was talking about how it's through economic

development that you are going to lay the basis for finally resolving these inflamed conflicts. The president of Kazakhstan said peace through construction. Everybody else was talking about that and talking about how can we bring Jews and Muslims and others together to actually resolve this. And then the Israeli foreign minister is just sitting there saying, well, the only thing that's important is to de-radicalize the people of Palestine. Yeah, de-radicalize them after you've killed how many tens of thousands of them, and you're going to de-radicalize them. But, I mean, he was, you know, he was, like I say, sticking out like a sore thumb.

This was a completely different dynamic. So I just don't think this is in isolation of everything else which is going on, which, again, I don't rule out the fact that it goes sideways, but I don't think it's gone sideways yet. Well, all I can say is that I very much hope that you are right and that I'm wrong, but I think that in terms of risk-taking, in terms of just the relationship between the upside and the downside, I think this was a very, very bad move. I'm not going to, you know, if we met Donald Trump, he likes to take risks. Yeah, yeah, okay, but you know, it's one thing if you, I know, if you, I'm not, I'm not. If you take risks on a real estate deal or, you know, like you bankrupt your company and you move on, this is, you know, this stays.

This is, this is not going away. I'm not, I'm not being flip when I say that. I know exactly what you mean, Alex. And I'm not, again, not being flip here at all. And then, you know, another thing that matters here a great deal, regardless of who here is right or wrong. you're coming to a point where emotions are getting inflamed on all sides. And at that point, you're not going to get very nuanced analysis of what happened. People are jumping on Epstein stuff, on Trump being part of it,

on him launching war to deflect attention from himself being, you know, You know, people are saying, yeah, Netanyahu has videos of him raping 14-year-old girl. I mean, I swear, I just saw that on X. I do not believe that because if that were true, they would have already torn him to shreds while they were trying to destroy him. But you're not going to get a highly nuanced analysis of things while. while emotions run high. And so he's making himself very vulnerable to losing the midterms.

And you remember when Benjamin Netanyahu was in the United States and he had a meeting with his influencers. And he, who loves to drop bombs, was saying the most important arm in the world is TikTok for us, because everything comes down to public opinion. It was Abraham Lincoln who said, you can do anything if you have public support, and you can do nothing without public support. And I think that she gambled very, very recklessly with that.

And I know he did, but I also know that it's very early and that Americans don't have a very long political. memory, I'm going to tell you, everybody who's talking about the midterms. This is very important. It's coming from a very, very important part of the commentary at who are, have been focusing on this for months. And we are six months away from the mid, from the midterms, you've been mattering to 90% of the, of the American electorate. And I'm going to, I'm going to be frank and honest. Most people do not get a shit about the midterms until 60 days beforehand. Most people don't even I know that, but you know that the whole network of corporate traditional media and the whole PR industry are Trump's enemies.

I know. They will make sure that the memory never goes away. I mean, you know, like, this is what I meant when it said to Campbell, and I'm attacking Iran's political suicide. and I was convinced that Trump, whatever, you know, like people say, he doesn't read, he doesn't listen, he has a short attention, spend, blah, blah, blah, all these things. And I think, okay, even if all those things are true, I'm pretty sure that Trump has street smarts and that he will recognize a trap. And so I can't work out why he pulled the trigger. And not only that, you know, Trump may have pulled the trigger wanting one thing, but guess what? the operations, the strategy, and all of that stuff is done at the Centcom. What if you don't control the Centcom?

What if you have Brits and Israelis pulling strings at the Centcom? And they kill the Supreme Leader knowing that they pushed you under the bus that moment and that everything is going to unravel for you. It's a possibility, Alex. I'm not going to argue. You can take that risk. You cannot take that risk. risk and he did and I think that that was a colossal blunder okay but I hope that I'm wrong and I

understand I I appreciate the I appreciate those angles on it I also appreciate the other side of this if he and Hegsath and Kane were on we're all on point this thing's going to be over in four weeks and everything is everything is operating is moving forward at the pace that they said it would the i'm everything that i'm seeing coming out of the iranians at this point points to them now attacking like civilian airports and office buildings and they're going after their arab enemies and then i even going after if they were really if they really if they really if iran was in a really good position right now they would be attacking american assets and they're not they attacked a couple of american assets on day one this looks exactly like a replay of the 12-day war they had their their biggest

I may be wrong, 48 hours from now, Iran may touch off a massive missile attack around the region and make me look like an idiot. And we were all wondering that was going to happen. And we were wondering, I don't think they have command of control, Alex. I think they don't have commanding control. I think we already mapped how they don't have commander in control last year. Because if they had commanding control last year, they would not have ended the conflict the way they did. That I think theater that you, that theater are set of strikes that you guys laid out at the beginning of the argument. I think that was both sides.

That was the Americans going to saying to Iran, okay. Iran saying, we're done. Like, and I'm sorry, but they, I'm, I'm like, I'm watching this and I've been watching everybody. Like, if anybody wanted a part of this, they would have come to Iran's aid. Last year's attack on Iran told everybody in. the world where the problem is. And it wasn't, you know, as bad as the Israelis are. And the Israelis are terrible. And I don't want to see them win anything here. It makes me sick to my stomach knowing that at a certain level, Netanyahu is right about things, about some things. Like,

it makes me sick to my stomach. It really does. But if you want peace in the Middle East, at some point, you got to take both of these assholes off the board. And the Israelis are, And the whole point of this operation is to get the United States out of the Middle East and to end the relationship and end our having to run interference for those crazies in Europe, which is what we're currently doing over Ukraine. And I think that, you know, at a certain level, he's having to in order, I mean, I honestly think that a certain level, the Brits and the French like belatedly coming in and say, well, you know, macro and say, I'm going to bring in the aircraft carrier now, two and a half weeks from now when the whole thing should probably be over. That was Trump saying, if you don't do this, I'm done with NATO. I'm out. We're done.

And I'm going to force it. And there's nothing you can do about it. And I'm going to tell Vlad to go kill that track suit midget and be done with it. Tom, I think that that's in the area. You either back me on this or this thing is over. I sincerely pray that you're right about that. I really pray that you're right about it. Alex, I'm not yelling at you, my friend.

I'm just, no, no, no, I don't. Just so you know, I'm not angry with you in any way, manner of shape. Tom, man, I'm very, I'm very hard to insult and you're sorry, but you're not up to it. You're not even close if you try. That's the best, that's the best way I've ever been cut down in my entire life, my friend. Outstanding. Well done. Excellent.

No, I hate conversations like this for people that I respect. I do. It's part of my social anxiety. I don't like it at all. I hope everybody can see that. I don't like this hearing with Alex in public. It's a bad. No, it's okay.

Look, Tom, honestly, we're under a hailstorm of siops. It's very difficult to know exactly what's going on. I just, I have to say I have an emotion. reaction to all of this because I was so on board with Trump on most of what he's been doing. And even the things that I was not on board of, I thought, well, maybe there's a reason he's doing it. And in certain ways, it seems to be making sense. So, you know, I'll cut him credit until I know for sure. Right.

But this one, I, with this one, I feel that he's risking undoing everything he's accomplished so far. I think maybe, I mean, again, I don't know what precipitated it. So it may be the case that it was precipitated by the dark side to force his hand, you know, at this particular time. or he basically said, enough is enough. I have enough assets. You know, I've cleared the chess board enough of British assets. I've reset the game enough with the board of peace and everything else that I'm doing, that this is the time to finally take this one off the chess board permanently.

Because it's also the case that once this is out of the picture, you know, Israel no longer has a reason for Netanyahu's. You know, if you can actually genuinely remove these British Muslim Brotherhood assets, and Trump has already removed a lot of them going all the way back to 2017 when he first went to Saudi Arabia and said, cut the crap. You know, you're not supporting ISIS. You're not supporting al-Qaeda any longer. So here we are 10 years into this process with a four-year interregnum, you know, where he's been able to, I mean, we've all commented in terms of Syria,

you know, how Trump is essentially neutered a key British capability in Syria, you know, and in other places like that, that, you know, he's, he's, he's, you know, made the determination that now is the time to pull the plug there. I tell him what I think is valuable about these discussions is none of us know how it's going to turn out. And what you have to do is you go, go back whenever the does. just settles, either the way we all pray that it will or in another way. And you go back and you look at each argument and you say, okay, what is it that was being missed in this process?

And that refines your intelligence capabilities as you move forward. I mean, I do agree that if this is resolved in the way that I think the administration intends, and it's not necessarily in their control, in four weeks, this is something that. that not only will not affect the midterms in a negative way, but if this actually accelerates the process of finally stabilizing this region of the world, as it has never been in anybody's lifetime, you know, that that is going to further feed the momentum in the mid-east. But I think all of us are wise enough and have been around enough to know, we don't know how it's going to turn out. No, we don't. We don't. I agree with both of you in that respect.

And I've been strangely calm through all of this, to be honest with you. Most of my anxiety today is having to disagree with my friend Alex in public more than it has been anything else. I'll be honest with you. I told the story the other night. I was on last night when I was on with Tommy Kerrigan and the other night. And the ex came through at one. 40 in the morning. I was killing pixels for fun and profit. And the text came through from Dexter White. It started. And I took, I looked at them and I didn't respond. And I put my phone back down. And I went, going back to killing pixels until 3 o'clock in the morning. And then I went and sat on the couch and went down to late on the couch and said, I got to get up early in the morning.

So I need to sleep on the couch in order to get up uncomfortable at 7 o'clock in the morning to write all day. And about 10, I had about 10 minutes worth of anxiety. And then I slept actually pretty well. It was, I, this is playing out pretty much as I expected it to. I, I was not convinced. I was actually convinced he was going to do this kind of thing. Whether or not he was making the decision to kill hominy or not, because I've always been, of minds about hominy. Like, I've, again, like I said earlier, I can believe the fatwa against nuclear weapons is real and the IRGC were pursuing a nuclear weapon, and I can perceive that split. And maybe that's my rose-colored glasses.

That's my blind spot. But he's off the table, or better or for worse. Alex may be right that this is going to be a galvanizing thing for the Iranian people. It could be the other way around. I don't know. I know that Iran itself is a lot, like Americans, a lot of different cultures, all crushed together under 92 million people. there are Christians, there are Jews, there are Persians, there are Sunnis, there are Shiites.

There's a bunch of, it's not a monolith. It's a very, very diverse country in that respect. And so, you know, that's part of our problem and a lot, not our problem, but our problem is a commentary at to remind ourselves that these things are not monoliths. There's a big difference between northeastern Americans and people from Idaho and people from Texas and people from Florida. And it's all one big country. Americans don't, you know, it doesn't cover it.

Same thing with French. Same thing with Italian. Same thing with Brits versus Scots versus Irish. We all know this. And so same thing with Alberta versus Ontario. Yeah, Alberta versus Tarantone. Just throwing that in there. Hi, everyone.

I'm still here. And what I'm going to say from here is that let's see how, let's see how this plays out. Because I'm hearing from a variety of different, I'm hearing a variety of different. I'm hearing a variety of different factions of Iranian people, different, I'm getting different things. And frankly, since I'm mostly okay with what Trump has done, I'm taking it hard publicly on Twitter. I'm taking it hard from a variety of different factions, both pro and anti-Iranian, both pro and anti-American, all of it. And the way it's mapped into me is someone, the right people's ox has been gored. let's just put it that way.

Yeah, I'll conclude when John Bolton is concerned about chaos in Iran, can you really take the man seriously? So what is he really concerned about? Right. The one thing about this, this is we're coming up on the hour and I know Alex has to go, is that this is going to be a very, very interesting time of cornerstone in four weeks, folks, because we've got diversity opinions about this when we get there. Yes, we do. And I just wanted to chime in because I'm like, Tom has anxiety of how,

Alex, you know, all the, you know, disagreeing. And I'm like, this is why we do it. This is exactly why we do this. I don't put this cast of characters together so that we can all sit there and nodder heads. And I mean, and at times we have. If you go, if you go back to the very early Tom Alex episodes, Tom, you guys disagreed on the outcome. And Alex changed your mind and you over time changed Alex's mind and different things. So this is, this is why this is important.

Discussion is important. Disagreements. are important you know i woke up sunday and i watched trump's address and i was weirdly peaceful about it because i'd been talking to you tom with you and l tc murray i want to say where you guys you where you're like yeah there's gonna be an attack on rent so when i woke i was like well i think tom already told me this was coming now did i see the 48 uh things coming um 48 sorry people dying and everything else nope didn't see that coming that is not how I envisioned it.

Yes, Alex. Just a curveball for fun. Yes. Sure. I watched Trump's speech. You know what I thought was really bizarre about Trump's speech? He was very far away from the camera. And then he looked like this.

Yeah. What was that all about? I wondered the same thing. And that was in the same days when they, they ran the whole Jim Carrey switcheroo, which they admitted was a switcheroo. Like, what the hell is going? I mean, I swear, I can't put that to rest. I, I, I'm still wondering.

I would say that he was given a thing, he was given an address to the nation at 2 o'clock in the morning. He's probably been up for 36 hours straight. And he probably looked like death warmed over. That was on the cat. Get him away from, get him away from the. the camera away from space. How do you have to see how a bloodshot his eyes are and have how do we know that was him? How do we know that was him?

I know what you're getting at, Alex. I'm if I'm directly considering how well directed the state of the unit address was because that was clearly under Trump's control. Carly Lake did a brilliant job with the C-SPAN feed by the way. I just want to say watching it as with an editor's eye and watching it as the director's eye. I'm like, oh, wow. So there's another. there's another Republican donor's advertisement right there. There's another one. There's another one. There's another one.

And I'm like, yeah, they're not, they're in control of their, of their comps as what I'm going to, at a level that I didn't expect them to be. So there's, I'm, I'm going to air on the side of he's an old man and he looked like shit. And Trump doesn't like looking like shit in public. So, because he still wears bronzer at times because he still aren't. he's still, you know, orange Mussolini or whatever you want to call him. So I just, yeah.

So that's what I'm going to go with that. What's that? You think he just wanted to look good? I think he wanted to look as good as possible. I don't think he looked. I don't think he looked. I think he looked tired and I think he looked worn out. I think he looks,

I think he looked honestly disappointed. But that's, that's my generous read at this point. Susan, Tom, Alex, appreciate you all hopping on and doing this. Relatively short notice. And I don't know. Tom, you're absolutely correct. At sitting here, we had 13 tickets left. I don't know if that's true anymore.

So it'll be a full host for when you guys are on stage. And specifically, apology, Susan, to point to Tom and Alex for a second. If you recall, man, it's three years ago now, three years ago when you were in Lloyd the first time? Yeah. Well, yeah. The four, yeah. 100.

Yeah. Yeah. First time, 140 people. That's what we had there. Maybe it's 125. I don't know. Give or take. Well over 700 this time.

So it's, this is going to have a little different deal. That's a, that's a get together like nobody's ever seen before. Correct. No one's ever seen before. Correct. Well, thank you.

At least for these two, oddly. Thanks, everybody for doing this. Susan, thanks for hopping in and being a fourth on the roundtable. I appreciate it. And, well, we'll look forward to seeing Tom and Alex here shortly. And just thanks again, everyone, for hopping on and doing this. Thank you.

Thank you for the invite.