The Chris Cuomo Project - War With Iran — Now What?

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Chris Cuomo opens with a blunt declaration: America is at war. He questions how we got here, what authority was used, and whether anyone in Washington can clearly define the objective or the exit strategy. If this is the biggest decision of the administration, what happens next — and who owns it? Mike Huckabee (U.S. Ambassador to Israel) joins Chris for a pointed conversation about the U.S.-Israel alliance and the growing fracture inside American politics over Israel and Iran. Huckabee responds to Tucker Carlson’s accusations that Israel is manipulating U.S. policy, addresses criticism over civilian casualties in Gaza, and argues that Iran poses a direct threat to the United States — not just Israel. Join The Chris Cuomo Project on YouTube for ad-free episodes, early releases, exclusive access to Chris, and more: https://www.youtube.com/@chriscuomo/join Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code CUOMO at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/cuomo Support the Freedom From Religion Foundation's fight to keep church and state separate—visit https://ffrf.us/Chris or text CHRIS to 511511 to take action. Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get 20% off with promo code CUOMO at https://shopmando.com ! #mandopod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

America is at war, period or question mark? Well, you tell me, but to me, it seems like it's a period. Why? The president keeps using the word war. Oh, yeah, but he just, hey, this is not a time for excuses. The president keeps calling this a war. Israel calls it a war. Iran calls it a war. Congress doesn't, but let's be honest, they've given up their authority. I have an analysis. I have an of what's going on right now that is very well-sourced, not so much about how we got here, but what we know about where this is going, and whether anybody is really thinking about that.

The scariest thing I have to tell you right now is that's just becoming a developing consideration for this administration. The president throughout four weeks, they don't even know why. They don't even know what to do in those four weeks. They don't even know what the objective is. However, that is a legitimate point of criticism and concern.

What is not is this is illegal. Trump should be impeached. This should have never happened. He's not going to be impeached. And if he were impeached, he would never be removed. So wasting the energy on that point of opposition that this was wrong to do is the least helpful thing. The most helpful thing is to say, now what? What's the plan?

What's the exit? Because you know he can't argue convincingly that, well, there was an imminent threat. There was an imminent threat. They were about to do something to us, which is really what allows the president or any president the highest ground in initiating military response without Congress. Okay? Everything else is a runaround because Congress doesn't care enough. The majority doesn't care enough.

Now, is this a little different? Yeah, it's getting a little different. Why? Because he promised and MAGA was based on not doing things like this. Oh, but this isn't a forever war. That was Iraq. Nah, it's all the same shit, man. You know, you keep kicking the hornet's nest that keeps being problems.

What's going on in America right now? We just had a mass shooting by a guy who seems like he's got misplaced Iranian sympathies or Islamist sympathies. He shot a dozen people. more in Austin, Texas. He killed several people. You're not even talking about it. Why? Fatigue.

And you guys are so tied into, well, not you guys, because you guys are free agents, right? You know, you guys are critical thinkers. That's why you're giving me a chance to give you some food for thought. But our politics is divided into the, well, look, this is my side. I can't criticize it.

I got to own it. Magna's being tested on this. This is not what you guys voted for. This is not what you voted for. Okay? And this president has done more abroad than he has at home. And it's okay for you to say that. It doesn't make you a wrong.

It doesn't make you a loser. And I know people on the left want to say that, but this is a game that you love playing too. You love playing gotcha. Break out of the game. See the game, change the game. Don't let the game change you. All right?

Good life advice. Good advice right now. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo. project. So this is an act of war. Why? Because everybody thinks it is. Okay. So is he going to go to Congress? That's a phone call. That's the gang of eight. They're not going to have a debate. They're not going to have a vote. Why? Because the majority doesn't want to. And frankly, Congress has done this with presidents past. Democrats and Republicans, they don't want to own their authority because

they're weak. They're cowards. And this is the way we've always done it. The president gets to do what they want, except in really, really extreme situations. And then it's really that he just has to own it. And that is the biggest concern. The president of the United States, Donald John Trump, just made the biggest decision of his administration. This is the biggie that he just made. His administration is going to be known for this. So the outcome is everything. And it doesn't seem like they even have a plan. Well, they killed the Ayatollah. And regime change remotely?

In Iran, decades of fortifying the position of this despotic regime, they have certain things going for them. What? It's inorganic. I know a lot of people think Iran is like Indonesia, Pakistan, or something like that. It isn't, okay? Persian culture was robust and diverse. Christians, Jews, you know,

all the Baha'i, all these different, Islam, of course, but all these different ones. Okay, Persians aren't all Muslim. Now, this was an organic. This was after the Shah. This was, you know, which America and the UK had a hand in, right? Not that they are the reason that everything's so screwed up there, but they do have a role in it. And I would argue a responsibility, but that's an opinion. You take it how you want.

But the Ayatollahs came in from outside Iran. This is not organic. So you do have organic resistance. but it's also had decades to fortify. So guess what? The idea that everybody hates the regime, not true. Not true. It's much more true that people hate Hamas in Gaza than it is the regime.

Look, there are people out there openly, especially now because it's a little dangerous, but openly lamenting the death of the Ayatollah. Why? Because the regime has support. Why? Because there are a lot of backward-ass, easily subjugated, or not so easily, but over four decades of subjugation, they now buy into it or they're afraid not to. There's a lot of diversity of thought within Iran.

It's not 90-10 on let's take out the regime. And this regime is not Venezuela, okay? This is not Gaza. They have a million-man army here. They have the IGC. They have the Quds Force. They have all these different state actors to keep this regime in place. This is not going to be easy.

Okay. So we'll do what we did in Venezuela. and you work it both ways to stick in the carrot, and you work with the regime and see who are the good ones. This ain't Venezuela. Your problem isn't a bunch of radical commies or socialists. These people are Islamist, extremist, religious zealots. Do you understand me?

Okay, let a little ray of sunshine. You see the ray of sunshine coming into my face right now? Let it come into your brain and realize Iran ain't Venezuela. Iran ain't weak, okay? And you see, they're attacking the whole region. Why? Because they can. It hasn't been that effective. Yeah, I know.

We're only a few days in. The president said we're going to be doing this for four weeks. On what theory? What's the exit? What's the goal? I'm telling you, this was easy to start, hard to finish. Okay? And what do you care about here at home?

Well, first of all, there's rising violence in America in reaction to this. Will it just be a blip? Will it be a bubble or will it be a boil? I'll give you that again, not just because it's allureative, but it's really good. Is it a blip? Is it a bubble? Or is it a boil? What do I think?

I think it's a bubble. Boy, Cuomo, you're always picking that middle point. No, not. I'm being reasonable. Okay? I'm being reasonable because I'm a free agent. I'm a critical thinker. Okay.

I'm different. I'm not going to just say, well, you know, look, I got to justify this because Trump's my guy, or Trump's a despot and a Nazi, so this is proof of it. That doesn't serve us. You know what I want to start as a movement? By the way, fix America first. Fix America first. And you know how you do that in part?

Good trade relationships abroad. Helping build your alliances, respecting the ones you have. But you also have an obsession with the domestic and everything has looked at through that lens. Oh yeah, that's why he did this. Fuck that. How the fuck does this serve our interests at home? than other things he could have done with this time and energy and resources. Come on, man. Give me a break. So what is going on? I think we're at war. And I got to tell you, a conflict that lasts four weeks,

you're going to own it, okay? So whatever the proxies are going to do, whatever's going to be done in response, and you can't believe it's going to be nothing. You own it. You asked for this. No, Israel made us do this. We're controlled by APEC. Donald John Trump has one boss, and it is his avarice. That's what it is. It is the part of him that wants more. That is the part that is in control. And I'm not judging him.

I'm not even really criticizing him. I'm just observing that I know that that's what it is. I'm telling you, nobody told him, you got to do this, or the money stops. It's bullshit. Is he making money the way he shouldn't while president? 100%. 100%.

The corruption is crazy and in your faith. face. It's disgusting. This is not because BB made him do it. This is not because he got duped by Israel. He wants this. Okay? Why? I think you got to always keep it simple with him. The deeper you go in an explanation of something, the more you're getting away from the truth. Why? You say, are we talking about Epstein today? Are we talking about affordability today? Are we talking about any of those things? Nope. Oh, it can't be that simple. Put in American lives, losing servicemen, why not? He told you, you're going to lose more.

Maga is what we need to be the change agent here. You folks who signed up for certain things and aren't getting them, you need to decide to be about better. And the left can't just dine out on this in the midterms that see, Trump sucks. Look what he did with Iran. The guy's a liar, he's a fraud, he didn't fix things.

But what's better? How can you fix? How can you repair except by not being Trump? what makes you better? That's a pretty low bar, by the way. But you've got to get obsessed with that. And how's that different than what we have now? Because instead of just shaming people who voted for Trump,

offer them something better. Have leaders that can do that. Your leaders suck on the left, okay? Get better leaders. Your opportunity is great. You're in a good position. Why? Because you're not him.

You're not them. But what are you? Who are you? be obsessed with better, be obsessed with repairing and fixing, and that's what will win the midterms. Right? Because the American people are learning also, right? They're on this little digital journey of who to trust and who not to trust and what you can believe and what you can't with you. So what I have to offer you up today is, and I'll end with this, we don't know what happened with that school. Why do I have it in quotes? Because I'm not going to believe the Iranians on anything.

The regime, the regime, okay? Important distinction. like you can't call all Muslims, Islamists, you can't call everyone in Iran the regime. They're not, okay? There's more division and fealty or fear-driven acceptance of this regime than I think we are acknowledging in our dialogue in America, but the Persian people are different. The Iranian people are different. A lot of good people there want the same things that we do. I don't know that it happened.

I don't know that it's a school. I don't know that a lot of kids were killed. But I do know this. Two things. One, they knew that Khomeini was dead real fast. How do they not know what happened here? They do. They just don't want to tell us.

What does that indicate? Nothing good. What's the second thing? The explanation that, well, it may have been a school and there may have been kids there. We're not sure. But we do know for a fact that it was an IRGC stronghold and they were operating out of it. no brother no brother not after gaza nobody's buying that shit in america there's too much in maga and there's too much on the left that will reflexively jump at that as proof that this has to end yesterday

okay what's the plan what's the exit they've got to talk about this a lot more and you got to own it. Okay, whether it was the U.S., whether it was Israel, if it was a school, if it was hit, if kids died, own it. Don't have me chase you on a lie for two and a half weeks. Own it. Don't do it again. Realize why it happened. Tell us why it happened. But this whole, oh, well, it's not really a hospital because it's not really a school. It's not really a mosque. It ain't going to happen this time. It's going to go bad for you. deep and fast. Okay? America is at war. We didn't declare war the way we're supposed to, but we did none the less. So there better be a plan and it better be a bit better be an exit

and it better not be four weeks. Okay? And I don't know how you do regime change remotely and I don't know how you work with parts of this regime and trust that it leads to anything, you know, that's better in a material way for the people there. So now here's my next offering. I got to to Mike Huckabee right before we went in. And the perspective on the Israeli-American alliance and what was motivating this, but here's more important, I'm going to end with the thing you're going to want most,

least, last. That Tucker Carlson interview with Mike Huckabee, Huckabee hasn't really talked about it. He has an entirely different explanation. He's got real questions about Tucker Carlson's health. He's got a really different story about what happened to Tucker Carlson in that airport and why they were in the airport in the first place and why Tucker Carlson was flying private into there and how different

the man he was sitting across from is than the man he thought he knew. So here is the U.S. Ambassador to Israel talking about what would lead up to the war that it seems like we're now in and the war within MAGA about what the truth is about Tucker Carlson. You want to know? Here's Mike Huckabee with the real. Support comes from Cowboy Colostrum. You know what's in my little firefighter-friendly coffee cup that I have here? If you're listening, I have a cup in my hand that is a firefighter-friendly one.

But what's in it is Cowboy Colostrum with my espresso. Now, some of you will say, oh, you're not supposed to take it that way. And I say to you, shut up. Because I'll do my Cowboy Colostrum the way I want to. And the reason I take it is what matters. My gut is not great. Colostrum is scientifically based understanding of benefit. Okay?

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And no, they don't. deprive the calves. The calves get to eat first, and then they take the colostrum, but they still get full fat, 100% made in America, 100% grass-fed cow colostrum, okay? And unlike other brands, it's that true first day whole colostrum after the calves get to eat, okay? So what will the colostrum do? Stability to the gut. It has peptides and growth factors that help with skin, with hair, with everything. I mean, it is mother's milk. That's why we do it. So for a limited time, try it out. You'll get a deal, 25% off your entire order. You just go to cowboy colostrum.com forward slash Cuomo. And if you're like my team and they can't spell it, it's Cowboy,

you know how to spell that because you're an American. Colostrum, C-O-L-S-T-R-U-M dot com forward slash Cuomo. If you don't know how to spell my name, beat it. And if you use the code Cuomo and tell them that Cuomo sent you, which I would appreciate, you'll get 25% off. Mr. Ambassador, let me talk to you a little bit about what's making news here from your conversation with Tucker Carlson. First, just from 500 feet. What was your take on what's going on with our friend, Tucker Carlson? In that interview, it seemed like you almost didn't recognize who you were talking to, you know, though you know him well. Yeah, I really didn't. recognized the Tucker Carlson that I've known for 34 years.

I first knew him in 1993. He was working for the Arkansas Democrat newspaper. Then I knew him and worked with him at Fox News for six and a half years in New York. It was a very interesting conversation in that I felt like that he was not wanting me to answer the questions. In fact, someone did an analysis. And they found that when he had Nick Fuentes, that Nuck case, Daryl Kemp, Cooper who thinks that Hitler was a good guy and that Churchill was evil, or when he had Putin or the president of Iran, when he's had some of the most notorious people on, he just lets them talk.

And in fact, the analysis was that they would have about 65% of the time and he would have 35. When it was interview with me, it was just the opposite. I had about 35% of the time and he had 65%. He interrupted me several hundred times in the course of the two and a half hours. and often it was very difficult to get the point across, even though he was asking a question, it was difficult to answer it because he immediately was pouncing,

and it was just strange. I was thinking, look, I thought we were going to be talking of Christian Zionism, thought that was your topic. And especially when we got into things like Christians in Israel, he seemed to be intent on telling me something that I knew was demonstrably untrue. And I'm thinking, Tucker, you haven't even left the airport. I live here.

If you really do want to understand some of these things, I've been coming since 1973. That's 53 years of continuity here. Over 100 visits before I became ambassador. I could answer some of those questions, but I can't do it if you won't let me get to the answer. What did he not want you to explain away? Well, he didn't want me to talk about how free it is to be. a Christian in Israel. He wanted to make it that Christians are oppressed here, that they're declining. It's simply not true. There were 34,000 Christians in 1948. There are 185,000 Christians today.

Freedom of movement, can serve in the military, can vote, can serve in the connesset, have all the rights that anyone else has. I myself go to church every Sunday. I'm not restricted about that. I even play the bass guitar in the church band every week. So this idea that somehow, if you're a Christian, you're going to be heckled and spit on and abused. That's nonsense. It simply isn't true. Now, you mentioned that when you were talking to him, you said, you know, you haven't even left the airport.

There were reports put out supposedly at his urging. I don't know if that's true, that he was detained and they were trying to get him because they know he's right about them. Were you able to verify what happened and didn't happen to Tucker Carlson? Yeah, I mean, that was bizarre because in the setup to the interview, and I'm glad he came, and I really appreciate that he did come. But originally the interview was going to be at the embassy. And then he said, I really don't want to stay that long.

Can we just do it at the airport? Okay. Then he asked us to, would we contact the IDF and tell him his flight plan, his tail number on the private plane that he was going to be coming in on? And we said that why? And it was very obvious that he was paranoid. He thought they were going to shoot him down. And I didn't want to say to him, Tucker, no offense, brother, but you're just not that big a deal to the IDF right now.

They got other things they're worried about. Airplanes, even private airplanes, coming in and out of Ben-Gurion Airport all day long. It's not an unusual thing. Nobody was going to shoot him down. And then he came to the executive lounge, one of the nicest in the world. Chris, I'm sure you've been in a lot of them, I certainly have. And some of these lounges are luxurious. This is one, one of the finest I've ever been in.

And so when they, he was claiming they confiscated my passport. Well, what happens in a lounge like that, they come and they do the processing for you. Yeah, for customs. A nice snack and a beverage. Yeah. That's hardly a confiscation. We had video footage from the surveillance cameras inside the lounge where he was hugging on the airport employees and taking pictures with them. And he seemed to be having a fine time.

But then after he got back from the interview, he created this 25 minutes. narrative about how his producers were hassled and they were given a hard time, they were interrogated. Well, if you've ever flown in a route of Israel, you know that they take security seriously. They ask everyone the same questions. Quite frankly, Chris, they ask those questions of me. I've got a diplomatic passport and a diplomatic visa. I'm a fairly well-known person being the ambassador of the U.S. to Israel to those people, but they still treat me just like everyone else and I answer the same questions. That's not an interrogation.

It's for everyone's safety. So I thought that was all rather bizarre. He also requested that the U.S. Embassy provide security for him. Well, we told him we can't legally do that. When you come to Israel, I'm sure it would be wonderful if you could say, hey, would you provide a ride from the airport? Could you make my hotel reservations? Can you provide security? And we would tell you, Chris, we can't spend government money on a journalist because then

would be a lack of integrity on your part to accept it. Right. And it would be inappropriate and a misuse of tax funds for us to offer it. Even when a governor comes, we don't do that. The only people who get a control officer and that kind of treatment are federal officials, elected or appointed. That's it. No private sector people are giving control officers, transportation, and security. But you've got to remember, he's been hanging out with the Arabs.

You know what I mean? Like he's flying private. He's doing very well on this new jihad that he's on. The question is, do you believe knowing him and being a savvy guy who's been in politics for so long, you know, and you've lived a lot of life, you're going to be a good read on people? Do you think this is about opportunity for him or do you think something's wrong with him? You know, before the interview, I thought it was all opportunity. I thought that, you know, there's got to be, maybe it's all about the clicks and the money that one can make. by getting clicks.

And even the negative clicks, as you know, Chris, whether you get positive or negative, it's monetized. And so it's good money. And if you can make people mad and they are angry at you and they don't like you, but they still watch you, I mean, it's chiching. So that's what I thought. But after we sat down in the interview, there were many times, and other people who watched it,

noticed this and said it without me prompting, he didn't seem to want to make eye contact with me. And his body language, I felt was awkward. And then I started thinking, you know, this is not just a person who he may be into clicks. And I think he probably is and he's ambitious with that. That's fine. But I really began to think there's something going on inside. And that troubled me.

You know, having known him this long, I was expecting, I wasn't expecting a softball interview. I knew where he stood. He doesn't like Christian Zionism. He said it's a brain virus. He said Ted Cruz and I were some of the worst people he'd ever known, and I thought that was odd because we're Christian Zionist. He didn't know what that even means, and so I tried to explain it to him. I don't know that he ever got it. It was difficult in that he seemed not to be interested in having a thoughtful conversation calmly and thoughtfully.

And then there were some things he said that made no sense at all. It was a rabbit hole I couldn't figure. example, when he started talking about that we should do DNA testing on everyone in Israel to see if they're really Jewish. And I'm thinking, my God. Descendants of Abraham, he said, if you're going to go by the Bible context of what the land boundaries are, which I thought was unfair, you got painted as somebody who's like, yeah, as an ambassador to Israel for the United States, I'm basing it on just my reckoning of the Bible. But, you know, it resonated online. But yes, he did suggest that seriously, you think. Yeah. But he didn't play that whole clip when he

edited it and sent it to all the Arab nations and had them all spun up that I had said, oh, just let Israel have the whole thing from the Euphrates to the Nile. I said that after he had hammered me repeatedly, trying to get me to define the boundaries. And I finally said, just let them have the whole thing, tongue in cheek. Then I said five times in a row, Israel isn't interested in all of this land of the Middle East. They want the land they have. That's it. They don't want Jordan, they don't want Lebanon, they don't want Syria, they don't want Iraq, they don't want any of these other lands in the Middle East. They want the land that has been theirs and the land that they have that goes back really to 3,800 years ago.

But if we want to look at the modern iteration of it, it goes back to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, League of Nations 22, United Nations 47, Independence in 48. And then they fought wars in 48, 56, 67, and 73. plus in 82, 2014, two in Defadas, and they won. And so they didn't give up a plan,

even though, interestingly, they ended up doing it anyway. They gave away the Sinai to Egypt and to Gaza. They gave it to the PA. So this idea that somehow that was what I was saying got lost because if people had the full context, they would know that's not what I said.

I expressly said that wasn't it, but saying that it was what I said, It's like this, Chris, if you portray a half-truth as if it is the whole truth, it becomes an untruth. And it would be like me saying, hey, did you see that hockey game between the U.S. and Canada? Heck of a game. Except I didn't watch the last 30 seconds. Well, if you didn't watch the last 30 seconds, you missed the whole sinking game. And I would say that if you cut that tape off where he did, you don't know what I said because in the context of it,

And we started sending out the context and saying, I don't think you're going to be that upset if you hear what really was said. Support comes from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Guys, you should partner with me. I should be the face of this organization. Here's why. I choose to have faith in my life. It's a choice. I do not put it on you.

Why? Because it doesn't have to be your choice. We live in a secular society. Okay? and this really matters. The First Amendment, everybody loves to swing it around, right? Waving around as I'm a patriot. I believe in the First Amendment.

So what is it? Right to redress government. Press, free speech. And what else? Separation of church and state. The founding fathers were almost all Christian to a man, right? At least what they'd admit publicly. All of them wanted to build this in.

Why? We are not a religious state. The freedom from religion foundation works to keep this ideal in place. You have the ability to believe whatever you want because I don't have the ability to make you believe anything that you don't want. That is why we have to preserve freedom from religion. The state doesn't get to tell us this is what we believe, this is what we don't believe, this is how we do it, this is what we're about, this is our tradition. No, no, no, no. Tradition, fine, not our rule. The Freedom from Religion Foundation does really, really important work. Go to ffff.us slash Chris or text my first name, Chris, to 511, 511. Support this organization. They should be working more with me. Why? Because I am all about this, man. I'm not just about saying, I get to say whatever I want. I get to do whatever I want, free from consequence. It's not how life works.

It's not how the democracy works. It's not even really how the law works. But just as important as that is you don't get to tell me what to believe. You don't get to put it on me. You don't tell me I have to have religion. No, not in America. If we want to be able to believe whatever we want, we can't have government be in the business of telling us what's okay to believe, to say, to think.

No way. So go to ffrf.us slash chris or text Chris to 511, 511, text, data rates, whatever applies, applies. Engineered narratives are everything on social media. And as we both know, it's always been a battle with media, period, but nothing like today. It was necessary for him to clip it that way and send it around because the agenda, at least where you were involved, was this guy's working for Israel. because that's the new narrative. The IDF, A-PAC, so much money. I work for A-PAC.

They say it all the time. I keep checking the mail for the checks. They don't go. But that's what he wanted to say about you, and that's what resonated, is I think Huckabee's working for them. He says they should have everything. He says it's about the Bible. He's not working for the U.S.

They've gotten to him. What does that mean to you, and what has happened as a result of that interview to you? You know, I don't care what he thinks about me. I'm expendable, quite frankly. Here's what I'm concerned about. What he is saying about the president is what is of concern to me. He outright said that the president was being led around by Prime Minister Netanyahu and that it was not in the best interest of the United States for us to be this involved. Why did the prime minister make seven trips to the White House? And I'm thinking because he was invited, maybe that's part of it, because we have an unusual partnership, the likes of which we don't have with any other nation on Earth.

I mean, we really don't. Sharing intelligence, military, agricultural technology, things that really are a unique relationship. But the disparaging of the president to me was beyond the really the whole approach and over the top. because he was saying that the president's not listening to the American people. They don't care anything about Israel. They don't care about Iran. They want nothing to do with it. I'm thinking for 47 years Iran has said death to America. They've trampled our flag.

They put a hit out on President Trump. That guy's in jail right now. They've killed thousands of Americans not directly and through their proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the hoodies. They're in 12 Western Hemisphere countries. The proxies are. This is a real threat, not just to the Middle East or to Israel. Iran is a threat to America and to Americans, and their involvement in the kind of evil that they're a part of.

I want Americans to understand. This is not about just Israel and this is not about the Middle East. This is about America, because if Iran were able, and they're working on it, to have a long-range ballistic missile with a nuclear tip, Chris, I promise you, they'll light up that puppy and send it our way. What doesn't make sense, and this goes to the maybe talkers dealing with something on the personal side, is if he feels that way about the president, why does he show up at the White House as often as he has? I can't answer that. It's very bizarre to me. I think he wants to make it appear that he's really,

before the president, but he said horrible things about him. And he continues to pretend and act and actually say that the president isn't making his own decisions, that he's not calling the shots. Well, you know, one of the things that I just say to people when they make this thing that maybe America's being let around, I'm thinking, look, the entire Jewish population is 0.02% of the world's population.

There are 16 million Jews in the entire world, and 8 million of them live in Israel. If this tiny little country of a total of 10 million people, in a sliver of land the size of New Jersey, 65% of which they don't even live in because it's in the desert, if this little country can run the rest of the world with that small of a population, then you know what I'd say is, and here's the moment, I guess you could clip this and make it a bad statement. But I'm going to say, hand them the keys. These guys know how to drive if they can do it with that. Obviously, that's not what I'm suggesting. But I think it's outrageous to suggest that a nation of 340 million people with one of the strongest presidents in my lifetime, if not ever, whether people agree with his policies, you cannot disagree that he is an extraordinarily different president, strong, never unsure about what he should be doing. And to say that somehow, that the Prime Minister of Israel has him on a leash and is pulling him around? I mean, I've been in the meetings with these two. That is not the way this works. And there is a respectful, healthy bond of relationship between these two leaders. It's very refreshing to see. They don't always agree.

But they also know that they have a very important alliance that is good for both countries. America benefits from this alliance. And that's what a lot of Americans do. don't understand. But the idea that President Trump is weak and is being let around, I find that insulting to the president because there may be a lot of things one can say about President Trump, but that he's on a leash, easily led, easily pushed. That ain't one of them. Well, but so let's, why do they do that?

Because of the circumstances. As you lay out, it's a very unique relationship. Yeah, that's the problem. Why Israel? Why does this small place get so much money and attention from the United States? And that does open you up to the conspiracy that it's because they have bought and paid for the American power structure because it doesn't make sense. Why do we give more to Israel than we do to anybody else in the region? Well, first of all, it's $3.8 billion.

Sounds like a lot of money. And in my personal account, it would be a heck of a lot of money, and I would be happy to receive it. But in the great scheme of things, out of a $7 trillion annual budget, it is a very small blip. But here's what people don't fully appreciate. That $3.8 billion is immediately turned around and spent in America on American military hardware. I'll give you a couple of examples that are very close and near and near to me. every round of ammunition the IDF shoots is manufactured just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, at a Sig Sauer factory.

Many of the components in parts of the Iron Dome, the Arrow 3, missile defense systems are manufactured near Camden, Arkansas. If you were to tell my daughter... The governor of Arkansas. America didn't get anything out of Israel. She would say to you, we got several thousand people that have really good jobs, thanks to the money that Israel is spending. But if you added to that, the intelligence,

that we received. The improvements, for example, on the F-35 fighter platform, they have made improvements that would have cost us in R&D, probably $35 billion to have developed. We got that for free because they're the first Air Force to ever use that airplane in combat conditions. We learn stuff about how it functions and ways to improve it that we couldn't learn other than having it absolutely

tested in an air combat situation. Did we benefit from that? Do Americans like their cell phones? They wouldn't have it without the SIM card invented in Israel. Do they like car navigation systems? Israel was the innovator of that. What about cherry tomatoes and seedless watermelons, for heaven's sake? I could give you a long list of ways in which technology developed here,

came to the U.S. to be manufactured, scaled up so it could become current. commercially viable, and Americans are the direct beneficiaries of that. What do you think motivates this newfound? I'm trying to find the right way to characterize it, but look, there's always been anti-Semitism. I grew up in Queens, New York, all Jews and Italians, so many different parts of New York, Long Island, or Jews in Italian. So we know each other very well, a lot of intermarriage, a lot of everything.

I've never seen anything like this. and I don't know how after October 7th we got here except for two things and I want your take on it because you live it so much more intimately. One is this is the first time we had social media showing you one side of a conflict in real time. Okay? So people were seeing what was happening in Gaza in a way

they did not see what happened with the United States and the Allies in Iraq and Afghanistan and even parts of Pakistan. That's one. Two is that there is an agenda in politics to go against the white power structure and somehow the Jews have been included in that even though they also seem to have been removed from whiteness.

You know, I thought that all my Jewish brothers and sisters that I grew up with became white guys just like me. A generation ago, my father was an ethnic. He wasn't described as a white guy. I'm as white as the day is long. I thought they had also. And no, even though they look just like me, they're still Jews. Do you think that's what it is, the social media component of people seeing it,

and this new agenda of hating the power structure and them being seen as part of it? Yeah, I do. I think it's a good point, Chris, that a lot of people, particularly younger people, get all their news, all their information from social media. It's kind of dangerous because social media is really, and I'll say this, and I use social media because you have to in order to get a message out these days. But it's really a sewer. That's what it truly is.

And you have to try to separate, if you're a consumer of it, the good from the bad. A lot of people don't know how to do that. They don't know how to do their own editing. So I always say to people, you know, I grew up in a time when journalists were the ones who went and got the story. But then they had a copy editor, they had a city editor, editor. They had a publisher, and they had usually one other editorialette or some of the ones. other editor. They had several people that checked that story and they looked for the veracity of that story. Was it true? Could you verify it? Today, a reporter goes out in the field. He immediately

publishes it online. It's instantly everywhere. And nobody really does ask, what's the validity of this story? What are your sources? How many do you have and who are they? I'm very concerned about the level of Jew hatred. It's alarming. I thought we would. We've never seen this again after the Holocaust. It's a form of bigotry that is irrational. Why do you hate a Jewish person? Just because they're Jewish? What's that about?

I mean, it's not like the Jewish people have gone out and said horrible things about the rest of the ethnic groups in the world. They've provided for us an extraordinary level of scholarship and many things that they've developed and I think are pretty doggone good neighbors and decent people. It's disturbing to me that the, the same kind of things we saw in the run-up to the Holocaust, separation, isolation, and then an attempt to have humiliation, ultimately results in the most horrible and dangerous things.

As it relates to Gaza, there's something that I think it's lost. People have focused on what was happening in Gaza during the war. They totally lost why it is happening. That's where the mistake was. Why did this happen? Because of October the 7th. When 1,200 civilians weren't just murdered. They were massacred.

They were mutilated. Women were raped in front of their own children. Elderly people were burned in their wheelchairs in front of their families. Men had their heads cut off in front of their families. Babies burned in an oven. The most disgusting, horrific things. Unspeakable. And then Hamas took hostages, 250.

And they could have ended the war in October. but they didn't let those hostages go. They beat them. They abused them. They raped both of the men and the women. They starved them. And what is Israel supposed to do? And I've asked this question to many people when they say Israel was disproportioned in their response.

And what would your response be? If someone held your children in a tunnel and were raping them and beating them and starving them, would you send them a strongly worded letter and hope that they would respond to that, you would scratch through every piece of dirt you could to get your children out of that horrific hellish environment. And Israel was simply trying to rescue their sons and their daughters from these monsters who had already slaughtered 1,200 of their people. And if you scale that up to an American equivalent, it would have been as if on October the 7th, someone attacked America and murdered 40,000 Americans and took 10,000 people hostage. and held them for over two years. I understand.

The disproportionate aspect is what has teeth, especially with the younger Americans, that, you know, B.B. is not a peace guy. He's a wartime guy. And he's been looking to prosecute this case for a long time, and they gave him the opportunity, and he took it, which is why some want to believe it was an inside job or that they allowed it

or whatever nonsense goes along with that. The only salient counter to what you're saying, is, oh, I got you. You want to go and bring holy justice on Hamas and get your people back. I hear you. That would certainly be the American way. But you did more than that. You killed tons of innocence and kids that had nothing to do with that, that you knew you were doing and did anyway. Is that a fair criticism? It really isn't in this case because, and this was a point of contention in the Tucker Carlson interview, I said to him, the Israelis take steps. The Israelis take steps. that we don't even take in the U.S. to try to prevent civilian casualties.

I'm not saying we go after civilians, but they announced in advance where they were going to hit a target. They said, this is the place we're going to hit it. They would drop leaflets. They would hit messages with every cell phone in Gaza. What did Amos do? They pushed their civilians to those targets, not away from them. They didn't protect them. They didn't stand in front of the children and the women.

They put the women and children in front of them. Yes, there were horrific things that happened, but it happened in Dresden and World War II when the Brits bombed the heck out of a German city and killed 30,000 civilians in the space of four days. It happened in Hiroshima. It happened in Nagasaki. I'm not saying that justifies it, but there's got to be an understanding that I don't think it's fair to say Israel wanted the war, that they wanted to extend it. I've heard many times people in Israel say, oh, Bibi wanted this war to keep going. It was good for him politically. The reason that is an outright piece of nonsense is because when I would sit at the prime minister's office,

which is several times a week, and I'm sitting across from the prime minister and his key eight to ten cabinet members that are there with him, half of those people in that room sitting across beside the prime minister have sons and daughters who are in combat in Gaza. They're not doing desk jobs.

They're not away from the forward front. They are holding rifles. They are going into the house-to-house search to try to get the hostages out, and some of them never came home. There is no way in the world that Prime Minister Netanyahu would send his own staff member's children

into a war that he intentionally kept going if for no other reason they'd all get up, walk out on him, and say, this prime minister does not care about my children. That's absurd. Support comes from Mando. Now, here's what I like about Mando, which I used to pronounce Mando, and by the way, I'm okay with Mando, but it's Mando, and I use it, and here's why.

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This is smelling good and doing right. your body. Some men want to mask their B-O with cents. Mando men, get the job right. Don't mask it. Mando it. Mando it. Okay? Available in retailers near you or head to shopmando.com because for a limited time, new customers, guess get what? A discount, 20% off site wide with my exclusive code. What is it? Cuomo. Shopmando.com. Code Quo.com. Cuomo, Cuomo sent you, 20% off. You do raise an interesting point that doesn't get any attention in U.S. media. Even with the Internet and everything being international, a click away, it still gets a little parochial, a little provincial.

A lot of Israelis were against how the war was prosecuted, and they thought it was too much. And they thought that they were creating a vengeance cycle and a whole new generation of terror enemies. and that remains to this day. There's division in Israeli society. There is, Chris. There's no doubt about that. You know, it's sort of like it is in America. Half the people love President Trump, the other half hate his guts.

Same thing in Israel. Half the people love, the prime minister, other half can't stand in. That's politics. That's the way it works. They'll always be the criticism of anyone who is the one calling the shots and prosecuting a war because it's easy to second-guess it from the cheap seats and to say, here's how I would go. do it. Well, I'm thinking, okay, next time there's an open ballot, put yourself on it, go through

the machinations of running for office, and maybe you'll get to make those very difficult and tough decisions. But he's the elected person who does it. He does it with some very challenging political environments that are difficult for most Americans to understand. But ultimately, there's never been a doubt in my mind from having known him for over 30 years that whatever one may say about him, he really has looked at this as an important way to try to get the hostages out and to protect the people of Israel and to make sure that there's never, ever again, another October 7th. Because that was the worst day in the life of the Jewish world since the Holocaust. Yeah, I was there shortly thereafter covering the response of people who had survived and those who hadn't and all the stuff on telegram.

And it's interesting, for all the details that were true, the idea of headless babies that was definitely put out and not corroborated is what resonated. Because people just wanted a way to negate the horror of it and to make it not as bad as was being suggested. And you have a very unique role now. It's interesting as someone who was a governor and now you're doing this. how do you handle this situation where what Israel wants is not what America wants, whether it's military intel, whatever it is. You're involved in all of it is my understanding. How do you handle that?

Well, I first of all ask myself, how is this good for America? I mean, the criteria is not whether it's good for Israel. Is it good for America? Quite frankly, there are, I'd say most of the things with which we deal with on a partnership basis. It is quite good for America. People don't understand that every enemy Israel has is an enemy of the United States. The people who go in the streets and yell from the river to the sea and would like for Israel to not exist are the same people that want to destroy the United States, either from within or without.

They do not like the fact that we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, that we live in a free society, we elect our people. That's hard for folks in America maybe to understand. we also share common foundations of our value system. Whether one is Jewish or Christian, the Judeo-Christian Foundation is the foundation of Western civilization, and that foundation of Western civilization is what created America. Without Judaism, that led into Christianity, that led to Western civilization over a period of now 2,000 years,

which then led to this magnificent document, the Constitution. It's a pretty amazing thing. And those values that are reflected in that really are the values that we share. And I know a lot of Americans think it's just so far away. They don't care about it. But I marvel at this incredible continuity of history that goes back 3,800 years in which the ideals and the basic fundamentals of human behavior were formed.

thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal now kill means murder not just killing that thou shalt respect one's parents if you think about who we are in our most important behavior the laudable behavior that we seek where does that come from it does come from the continuity that started 3800 years ago look i tell people all the time i'm not jewish i don't go around saying nice things about the jewish people because I'm taking care of my folks. You know, I've never been a Jew, but I'm a person who has been coming here long enough to see something that I have incredible respect for,

and that is they took this barren, isolated piece of dust with rocks everywhere, and they turned it into a lush garden with forest and vegetables and fruit and vineyards and groves, and I've seen it with my own eyes in 53 years, and I remember Ezekiel saying that the dry bones will live again, the desert will bloom and I'm thinking, by gosh, I've seen it. I've witnessed it. It's pretty

amazing. That's part of it. And again, even though Tucker Carlson is someone who has said that he had the battle a demon and a real one, and that he is now very devoutly Catholic, I'm told, he says you are the zealot. And the reason Huckabee is in Israel is because he is a Christian Zionist, which the pejorative on that means that, see, he believes that the Jews have to be in Israel because that's how the rapture, the second rapture happens, and that's how the Christians get Jesus to come back. So that's why he's pro-Israel. Defend yourself, Zealett? That's so funny, Chris, because I'm not even a dispensationalist, you know, one who lives in the world of eschatology, the end of things.

I just don't. I tell people, when I was 18, I thought, I had a real handle on how the end of the world was going to come and all. I tell you, the older I got, the less I knew. And I now just say, I have no idea. It has nothing to do with wanting to bring it out at the end of the world. Heck, I've got seven grandkids, and I kind of want to spend a little more time with them. And I'm not in a big hurry for the end of the world to come right now.

But I hear that from people, and I just want to say to them, honestly, that's not where this comes from. Christian Zionism has a love and a respect and an appreciation for our Jewish friends because we know that without them we wouldn't be Christian. The foundation of our faith. Our Messiah was Jewish. The early church, they were all Jews. They all practiced Judaism. They kept the feast. So if we are going to be true to our history, true to our own foundation of faith, you can't just say, I don't want anything to do with the Jews.

How do you do that? It's like, I want to build a really nice house, but I don't want to have a lot. foundation. Well, that's pretty crazy. Do you have a concern existentially, not within the religious context, but in the geopolitical context, that our support of Israel will lead to a world war of everyone else against the United States, Israel, and whatever allies it can collect? I have a greater fear that if we don't stem the tide on the totalitarian governments like Iran that will swatter its own people, that will build a nuclear device and start vaporizing entire cities, that that will lead to the world war.

We are seeing some pretty remarkable things in the Arab world. They all joined together with the president at Charmel-Shek for the Board of Peace and the peace agreement. That's been historic. People can say what they want. I'm living here. And for the first time since I got here, we've had four months where we haven't had to go to the shelter and dodge a ballistic mess.

I kind of like that. We have all the hostages back. Every last one of them living in dead for the first time since 2014, there are no hostages in Gaza. I'm also aware that if you look at some of the members, let's say of the Abraham, of course, and I would put at the very top of that, the Emirates, because I think that they are a model of really moderating

and moving forward in a most progressive way, they've built the Abraham House, which has one building that handles a church, a synagogue, and a mosque, because they want there to be a sense of brotherhood. That's laudable. They've changed all their textbooks that no longer has incitement to cause people to hate Jews and to want to destroy Israel. Look, I love the Emirates for how they have taken the Abraham Accords. They've embraced them. I think they deserve a lot more credit than they get. But look at what's happening with the other Arab nations, many of whom would like to normalize relationships with Israel because it would be into their advantage. It would be in their best interest to have the technology, to have tourism and trade, economic partnerships. And that is

actually happening in ways that most people don't know. I'm not going to name names, but the intelligent sharing that happens with Israel and many of the Arab nations that make publicly say that they hate Israel, I got to tell you, there's a lot more relationship than people would ever know. And it's healthy to both sides. Last thing, Mr. Ambassador, and thank you for your time. What is knowable about what Hamas is doing? You just said this is the first time there's no hostages in Gaza. A constructive argument could be made that the Gazans are hostages, if not by Israel and the yellow line by Hamas, which is getting absolutely no attention.

What do you know about what Hamas is doing on the ground to their own people? It's not pleasant, and I think Hamas is trying to reconstitute of their strength. They agreed that they would disarm and demilitarized and not have a future in running Gaza, but they're not leading up to that. they're the one piece of this process that is the most difficult. They've not been honest about what they said they would do. And at some point, I mean, the president has been so clear. Amaz will disarm, demilitarize, and will have no future in the ruling of Gaza.

They just won't any more than it would be reasonable to think that you could have left some Nazis in Germany and let them have a role in governing the future of Germany. It would be unthinkable. But what do you make of the reports that, to reestablish themselves and get back to norms of oppression that they are brutalizing their own people right now and we're just not hearing about it. I think that there are valid reports to that. And they're particularly going after some of the clans that have shown resistance to Hamas. Probably won't surprise you that there are a lot of people in Gaza who hate Hamas.

And when I did get to go in there, I haven't been able to go in months. But when I did go last year and I talked to people in Gaza, it was interesting. They did not hate America. They didn't really hate the IDF in Israel. They didn't appreciate all the things that were messing up their lives, but they understood that it was happening because Hamas had created this horrible environment. What they hated was Hamas because every person I talked to had some member of their family who had been murdered by Hamas for one thing or another. and they wanted them to have nothing to do with the future of Gaza. And I doubt that that has changed a great deal because it is ruined their lives.

It is ruined their livelihoods, their homes. But once, look, let's be honest, Gaza could have been Singapore. Hamas turned it into Haiti. And that's a doggone shay. One last question, which is actually a grievance, which is totally self-serving, and I understand that. But it is also important. This is the only conflict I've ever covered where access is denied. America did the embed program in the War on Terror, which was a definite genius stroke for the administration because they got to control where the media was going to be.

I mean, I think there was plenty of reporting done, obviously, but this is the only one. And I understand that the IDF is like, well, if you go in there and you get hurt, but you have to understand, Mr. Ambassador, that's not a real basis of denial ever before. And they've definitely, like right now, I don't know what Hamas is doing. I know what every other bad group is doing all over the world in places that are actually much worse than Gaza.

But I don't know what's happening there because they won't let media on the ground. and you know the international media has been talking more and more about this. What do you say to that? And certainly that's not what America would do. There is certainly a side of what you've said that I absolutely agree with, that light is a good thing. It's a wonderful antiseptic, particularly to take down lies.

I also understand the anxiety because the Israelis have seen that a lot of people who pretended to be pressed because they were a press jacket. They were actually working for Hamas, actively working for them. And I know Tucker said, well, they were pressed. They wore jackets. I said, that's like me saying that I'm wearing a St. Louis Cardinals jersey, and I'm going to be the starting pitcher on their opening day. Wearing the uniform does not make one.

I personally would certainly love to see at least selected journalists get in. And there were some getting in last year. a few and far between, but there were some that were able to go in and do their thing, which I think is probably healthy. But I do know that part of it is not wanting a journalist to get hurt, and part of it is that it means that the assets to escort and accompany that journalist in puts the people of doing the escort at risk as well. I totally get it, but that's the way they choose to do it, Ambassador.

That's not the way we do it. You know, when they come there, like, you got security? Great. This is where we're going to be. This is the FOB, the forward operating base. You can come in and out of here. We're going to credential you and, you know, go with God. And I don't want the IDF to protect me.

And not because they can't, but because I don't work for them. I'd be okay for American troops. Why? Because that's a compromise I can't disown. I am an American. No American troops are in Gaza. I know, I understand. I hope not, because I don't know what good would come from that.

But I appreciate you, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you for doing the work for the American people. Thank you for spending time with me today. Thank you, Chris. America is at war until it is not. Tucker Carlson's got some issues and some problems, and he's got to learn to tell the truth on things that are simple, let alone things that are hard.

What's going to happen next? I have no idea because I don't. even really know how we got here or why we got here. And it's important to get the perspective from people who are helping pull the strings and the ambassador Israel is absolutely one of them. But I don't know where this leads, but I know this. We're going to get there together. We're going to get through it together.

And we're going to be pushing for better repairing and fixing America first. How about that slogan? Fix America first. Thank you for subscribing and following. Thank you for checking out the new. subscriptions at YouTube. I just had a Zoom meeting with my top tier subscribers to answer their questions about what their concerns are about Iran, how I feel about it in a way that I may not express on the podcast

or my other programs. Why? Because I have different levels of candor, depending on what the prompt is and what the audience is. Okay, so you can look there. I'll see you on SXM, Sirius Radio 124, 7 and 9 Eastern every morning in the weekdays. and even in the weekday nights, the weeknights, News Nation, 8p and midnight Eastern.

Thank you for the opportunity. I hope I'm giving you food for thought. Let's get after it.