The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 2519 - Trump's Military Parade, Protests & Political Violence + Israel's Attack On Iran w/ Stephen Wertheim

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Veeeeery busy day for us at the Majority Report today, with a new front of Israel's military rampage opening up with Iran, Donald Trump holding what turned out to be a rinky dinky military parade, political assassinations in Minnesota, No Kings protests across the country, and AOC and Zohran holding a joint rally in NYC. We get to all of that today, plus a great interview with Stephen Wertheim from the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Israel's provocations against Iran and how to parse out Trump's strategy (if we can even call it that). Follow Stephen on X here: https://x.com/stephenwertheim In the Fun Half, AOC takes the stage to a huge crowd at her joint rally with Zohran Mamdani and points out that many of the establishment Dems who called for Cuomo's resignation as governor are now lining up behind his run for mayor. She says this is just one more reason why the country needs to turn the page on the gerontocracy currently at the helm of both major parties. Republican Senator Mike Lee irresponsibly tweets out that the Minnesota gunman who shot four people killing two of them, including a Democratic state lawmaker of being a Marxist, while his roommate says he was a regular listener of Alex Jones' Infowars who was a Trump supporter. Tim Pool weighs in to the new war Israel has launched against Iran and what Donald Trump's role might have been. But boy does it seem like he has stacked his panel with a bunch of people who will make points on his behalf so he can avoid going on the record during such a sensitive matter. Netanyahu on the other hand is trying to justify why he's provoked a war with Iran by telling Americans that he's doing it for our safety. CNN for it's part points out that Iran has targeted Mossad's HQ, which is right in the middle of a highly populated part of Tel Aviv. Does that sound familiar? Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com: https://fans.fm/majority/join Follow us on TikTok here!: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here!: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here!: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here!: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the ESVN YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/esvnshow Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase! Check out today's sponsors:   MAGIC SPOON: Get 5 dollars off your next order at MagicSpoon.com/MAJORITYREPORT Or look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery store. DELETE ME: Text MAJORITY to 64000 for 20% off your DeleteMe subscription Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech @RussFinkelstein Check out Russ' podcast the New Yorker Political Scene Scene: https://rss.com/podcasts/newyorkerpoliticalscenescene/ Check out Matt’s show, Left Reckoning, on Youtube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon’s show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza’s music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/ The Majority Report with Sam Seder – https://majorityreportradio.com/

You are listening to a free version of The Majority Report. Support this show at join the Majority Report.com and get an extra hour of content daily. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Monday. June 16th, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live.

steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow in the American Statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. On the war, Israel started against Iran. Also on the program today, Trump's parade a flop. Meanwhile, no King's protest draws millions across the country. Perhaps one of the largest single-day protests in the country in decades. Meanwhile, alleged political assassin, killer of two Minnesota Democrats and their spouses, apprehended and arrested

Israel continuing to slaughter aid seekers in Gaza Senate Republican committees set to take the next step in Trump's reverse Robin Hood tax bill new polls

Trump deportations unpopular Genetic House Democratic ballot up by eight two top union leaders quit the DNC Trump's FAA pick lied about having a commercial pilot license to fly airplanes

G7 to meet in Alberta Canada this week and Trump to expand deportation in Democratic-run cities while pulling back on farm workers, restaurant workers, and meatpacking workers. Fancy that. All this more on today's majority report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us.

Emma is not only out today, but she's married. We all went to the wedding, had a wonderful time. we'll wait and see if she wants the show pictures it's not that's not for us to do it's not the opening segment for the show to say no we'll wait and see but she'll be back in a couple days before she goes off on her honeymoon and uh for those who have been watching the show listening to the show for some time i want you to imagine emma on the eve of her wedding when war starts between iran and Israel, a would-be, well, not a would-be, a right-wing political assassin, kills two Democrats in Minnesota, has a long list of Democrats that they're looking to target.

AOC shows up at Zoran's rally Friday night. The, a court, I guess this was more on Thursday evening. First, said that Trump had no power to federalize the National Guard in the way he did, and then another court reversed it. We'll be talking to the Attorney General of California tomorrow on the program briefly, get an update on what's happening with that court case. And then, of course, all the protests and the military marches that were going on just before her wedding. literally had to take her phone and put it into a like a a safe at the bottom of the ocean

those begs comedians give you at the start of their show exactly um CPG says I appreciate that even on her special week Emma is able to dip in on the Matt Annie Lowry Twitter beef true loyalty um let's get into this uh parade stuff uh first Donald Trump had this parade. There were a lot of people who were, you know, sort of, I don't know, worried is the word, but we're sort of like a little bit concerned that it might, it might be disturbing. Mainly because he was promising to roll over people, basically, if they got in his way. Yes.

And there was a sense of like, what's it going to look like if, like, you know, those, we've all seen those images from North Korea. It's intimidating, it's stark, it's fascistic, the level of training and dedication that is so clear amongst those military personnel, it would be foreboding. And just the idea of spending $45 million on this parade for Donald Trump, and it really was for Trump, it turns out, was disturbing. then it just turns out to be like sort of sad and pathetic here is a couple of clips of this is and i should make it clear this is from scripts media we did not add any audio or take out any we didn't get vick burger to get in and do some folly work exactly you're not seeing like uh be prepared for throngs of people and tanks rolling down uh the street in washington dc

Yeah, there it is. I mean, you know, tanks are squeaky. You just would imagine at a big parade with throngs of people that you wouldn't be able to hear it, but not the case. This is a headline number one. Just put this up. Trump military. parade met with empty seats

do we have that up Trump military parade met with empty seats amid a nationwide protests I'm sorry did I say 45 million 46 million dollar parade and literally it was almost for like eight people

do you want to just tack another million on there because he's number 47 play number of four now these guys are this looks like casual like this like a casual uh stuff here not the tightest march i don't know i don't want to be too critical i didn't join the military but i've seen

people march that tighter than that we did not put that in there either we should tell you uh apparently The military is now sponsored by Coinbase. I think they're looking at making some Palantir folks. Do you play that clip that I sent here in the IM? It should start right at the right time. I mean, look at this image here. Pop this image up.

You can see this is in the middle of the parade. And it honestly looks like, You're at a, like a concert as they're, you know, just practicing, you know, the roadies are up there checking the instruments, or it's like, I don't know, like, I don't know, at 10 a.m. on the morning of a Bonneroo. Exactly. And it's kind of misty, so everyone's still in their tents. Play that clip that I sent in there.

Yeah, this one. You'll see, this gives you a good vision of like how, first off, This was almost exclusively for Trump. You have, like, him sitting on the dais there, like, but watch this clips, and then you can see the bobbing of the heads. That's what tells me that the march is not going the way that maybe Trump wanted it to. Before our nation. And if it wasn't for this powerful, capable force we're seeing walking by the day, we may not have had the United States of America. I'm so grateful.

I'm so grateful to have served. I'm so great for our soldiers that are marching today. I love a band. I'm grateful for all our veterans, whether Navy, you name it, all the services. We have six services. Trump's so badly wanted to do that salute. Now, look at, look at, look at, look at, look at, the heads are bouncing up and down. Like, it doesn't look like, right?

Uniform. Right, isn't it supposed to all happen at the same time? I don't know. I mean, I'm not, you know. Can you imagine the actual morale of some of those troops? My God. Yeah, you said people, like, it might have been disturbing if it was super militaristic and sort of scary, but it might be disturbing if you're one of those people. Oh, I would imagine.

At ease, men. At ease. I got to say it. I got to say it. And meanwhile, all of the people who I think Donald Trump expected would show up at ease, his military parade, although he was, I guess, subsequently complaining that the fake weather news said it was 100% definitely going to rain, and it didn't. And he was mad about that. He thinks it's a plot to keep people away. It was scheduled to rain everywhere. I was in

Riverhead, New York. I don't know how what, I don't know how many 10, 20,000 people live there. I'm not sure maybe 30 and maybe it's more but i can't imagine it's much more than that um and there was it was rainy it was um there's uh about 35 000 people there in riverhead new york and there was 1,500 people standing in the rain um for uh the no king's program test. Meanwhile, around the country, according to the polling outfit, strengthened numbers. They crowdsourced data from the rallies. As of midnight last night, had analyzed about 40% of them.

They counted 2.6 million people. So the estimates that we're seeing now are anywhere from like five. I've six million people nationally coming out in one day. That's a lot of people. Look at some of these pictures from around the country. Here's one from St. Louis. Here's St. Louis from above. That's crazy.

Full park there. There's also San Diego here. Russell, Neck of the Woods. Get that Atlantic piece up because that's going to. There are photos across the country. There were over 2,000 protests that took place. And this is where? Demonstrators, what, marching on the street in San Francisco here?

That's San Francisco. This is, that looks like maybe. Iowa, Des Moines. Iowa. I mean, across, they're spelling out no king. That's impressive. It's in the San Francisco again This looks like

Chicago I mean all across the country Oh wow This is a pretty packed one here in Chicago again Daily Plaza I mean that looks like Woodstock I mean it's like

Where's Waldo? Holy smokes Huge folks going down Cincinnati here I mean these are You know These are pretty dramatic images

This is Idaho state capital a little bit more well attended than uh than the military stuff it looks like um meanwhile of course there was some violence we had at least one instance of uh somebody ramming their car into protesters killing one um the no kings it's unclear to me whether the uh that right wing terrorist in Minnesota was interested in

attacking any no king protest but that's what happened around the country I think at the end a humiliating day for Donald Trump here is an image of

or I should say a video Jacob Sovroff from NBC he's covering the protests in L.A. And you can see in the screen, it's split screen at first with the military parade.

And he starts off by saying completely peaceful. So he's got the military behind him. He's standing between the military and the protests. And if there was any sense that the protesters were doing something that was a little bit aggressive, he'd be on the side. He would not be in between

the two. And watch what happens. This is, it's clear that to the extent that there was any violence between protesters and cops, it was purposefully initiated by the police. Here at Sobrough. I want to reiterate, this looks very

intimidating. This has remained 100% peaceful as far as I have seen. People are out here with their signs. Here, Meshaw, your sign, ma'am? Can I, uh, you see what your sign says? We are not criminal. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're not doing nothing wrong.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We have the freedom of speech. Go, go, go, go. You want to be careful, okay? You take care of yourself. So you can see, whoa, whoa, whoa, they're messing with the horses. Guys, let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's back up here. Um, obviously people are unhappy, Ari.

People don't want to see horses trampling. Let's go, guys. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Hey, Ari, we're okay. We're going to keep going with us if you can. J.B., one move a little faster back. They're pushing people with horses, which obviously gets people freaked. And again, I haven't seen, go to what you need to do. You're on camera, but take your time and space. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa. Let's go. Let's go. Oh, shit. Let's go. We're good, Ari. We're good, Ari. We're good. We're good. We're good. We're going to keep going.

I want to reiterate. And you could hear, Soberoff, at one point was about to say to Ari Melbury, like, I want to reiterate, it was completely peaceful until the cops started, decided to trample people with horses and then start firing projectiles at them. Pushing people with a horse. Yeah, not the best de-escalation technique. And also, probably not the smartest PR move to do that. as some as you have a reporter literally looking at the protesters saying 100% peace here's a woman's sign and she almost gets trampled uh that's what's going around you know and that is i don't know if that's a function of like we've got to uh be far more aggressive because of we've got the military here

I don't know, but that's... The message from the top is clear. Yep. And that's at Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, as far as we can tell, but unclear for sure. All right. In a moment, we're going to be talking to Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about the Israeli attack on Iran.

which has kicked off what appears to be a growing war between the two of them what the strategy is that Israel seems to be holding and how Donald Trump seems to have been just rolled

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We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll be talking to Stephen Worthheim, senior, fellow in the American State Craft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. We are back, Sam Cedar We are back, Sam Cedar on the majority report, Emma Vigland out today in her post-marital bliss. Joining us now or returning to the program, Stephen Wertheim, Senior Fellow at the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Stephen, thanks so much for joining us. Glad to be here. We are in, I guess, day four of what is now a full-on war, it seems, me between Israel and Iran. Let's go back. Give us the sort of the background, at least in terms of like, the desire to attack

Iran has been I mean, at least in my awareness, this was something that was on the agenda of neocons in the run-up to the Iraq war. The idea is we're going to take Iraq. We're going to make that into a

you know, a democracy, we're going to be met with candy and flowers, then Syria, and Iran was on that list. Give us a sense of just like, particularly from the perspective of the Israelis, but also in the context of the neo-conservative movement. Well, yeah, going back to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, you know, the United States, particularly neo-conservatives, but, you know, many American policy elites have wanted to, you know, engage in this grudge match between the two countries. The Iranians have wanted to engage. The United States have wanted to engage. That's a bipartisan thing. But you're right that, you know, conservatives, you know, before 9-11 were thinking about Iran, Iraq. Of course, Iran and Iraq had a long war throughout the 1980s, which we can both sides.

We, I mean, we certainly supplied Iraq with, I mean, some of the chemical warfare that we thought that they ostensibly had when, or claimed that we had, they had when we invaded Iraq. Yeah, I mean, so the U.S. government, you know, considered Iraq to be the lesser of the two evils when the two sides were going head to head. But I think, you know, most importantly for understanding the present predicament, it's been the goal of Israel and particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make sure that Iran, never gets a nuclear weapon to try to shut down any amount of activity that could in the future be used by Iran to get a nuclear weapon. And even more than that, to obstruct U.S. efforts, which have now occurred on a bipartisan basis, to reach a deal with Iran that would provide for international inspections to ensure that Iran could not make a nuclear weapon. So in this case, it isn't, you know, U.S. neocons that are pushing events, but rather the government of Israel, which decided to, you know, it says it wanted to preempt an Iranian nuclear weapon,

but Iran was some distance from being able to make a nuclear weapon. And in fact, both U.S. and Israeli intelligence have recently said that Iran had not made a decision to, pursue a nuclear weapon, though it had taken steps in that direction by highly enriching uranium. So Netanyahu wanted to preempt another round of U.S. Iran talks that might bring a new nuclear deal into fruition. But doesn't, I mean, there's something that is inherently contradictory there, it seems to me. And, and, and, And I wonder if Israel's fear of a nuclear Iran is also sort of a little bit of something we can all agree on quality, like Paul Wolfowitz, in the sense that we had a deal with Iran. that was the JCP OA, that being, you know, the first Iran nuke deal, that by all accounts,

Iran was adhering to. Right. They have expressed a, I mean, what appears to be, I mean, you know, I can under, different people can take it at face value or not, a reluctance to develop a nuclear weapon. and there were negotiations that by all accounts seemed to be not necessarily easy but certainly being sincere that both sides were engaging in and this seems designed completely to short circuit that which you know if I'm Iran right now I'm thinking the biggest mistake we ever made was not developing a weapon when Trump shut this down because none of this attack

would happen if we had a nuke weapon um how how is this really an attempt to forestall an iranian a nuclear weapon if this is launched in the midst of negotiations that very well may have done that well israel didn't want negotiations to happen um you know you could say that maybe the didn't believe that what Iran agreed to would really prevent it ultimately from getting a nuclear weapon. But I agree with you, something else is going on here, right? And I think that something else is in part the perceived opportunity that Israel had to go after Iran and weaken the regime, maybe even see if they could topple the regime. We don't quite know what Israel war aims are right now and what they will evolve into.

So, you know, Israel going back to the last year, exchanged direct fire with Iran twice, severely weakened its air defense systems, the most advanced of which was a Russian-supplied S-300, which was able to knock out last October. That makes it easier for the Israelis, to target Iran. Israel is also trying to go after Iran's retaliatory capabilities,

it's missile launchers, so that Iran will not be able to fire missiles and drones into Israel, although so far Iran has been able to do that and did some damage, although much less than Israel has done to Iran. In addition, Israel has disabled Iran-aligned forces in the region that were key part of Iran's own deterrent strategy against Israel. It successfully and over U.S. objections during the Biden administration launched strikes at Hezbollah, which are quite similar to what it's doing right now to Iran, trying to paralyze the leadership. and that got Hezbollah to stop being able to fire rockets into northern Israel. And then it got some luck when Assad, who is aligned with Iran, when his regime melted away towards the end of the year.

And so the Israelis saw that they might never get a better time. to strike Iran than, you know, what they could do in the first half of this year. So it was coming up to a kind of now or never choice for them, I think, in their mind. And yeah, they didn't want to go down the road of another JCPOA, this time with Donald Trump, who might actually be able to make it stick more than Obama, because ironically Trump was the one who stupidly walked out of the JCPOA during his first term in the hopes of getting some kind of better deal that has never materialized. So I think, you know, look, Israel has been traumatized after the October 7th, 2023 attacks,

much like the United States after 9-11. It's become less acceptant of risk from external enemies. much as the United States was, more willing to do things that it previously wouldn't have done. And so now it's taken a big gamble, gone after Iran, and it's hoping that the United States will ultimately either continue to support Israel or even join in, which I think is a major risk. Because ultimately, to be able to knock back Iran's nuclear program, one has to hit, in particular, a site in Fordo and Iran buried deep in the mountains, and it's widely believed that only the United States has the capabilities to do that. I should also say, though, that even a U.S., even a direct U.S. strike, you know, it may set back the Iranian program for maybe several years. But by the same token, as you mentioned, it may make Iran conclude that its mistake was to not actually proceed to make a nuclear weapon.

and Iran can, as long as it has some scientists left, can do that and can be deceptive. It can pull out of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and it can speed toward a nuclear weapon. How much of this timing was also motivated by what's going on for Netanyahu domestically? It's a good question. I mean, I don't know. he's already got a war on his hands in Gaza and also fighting in the West Bank. So, you know, I think the connection to Netanyahu's own political fate is a little clearer there. But it's true that Netanyahu has gone from looking dead in the water to escaping, you know, prosecution himself and surviving political.

as the Israeli Prime Minister yet again because of the wars that he's prosecuted since October 7th and for him to stop them completely I think would then expose him to accountability within Israel. So how much you can pin to this singular act against Iran?

I'm not sure, but does he have a disturbing incentive to continue with military action? action yes um getting back to the idea that um uh israel found this to be its most opportune time because um uh Iranian proxies or Iranian allied forces uh that would normally um respond on Iran's behalf or at least to some extent um have the white what what capacity does Yemen have I know that they've fired some rockets, what capacity does Yemen have and how concerned is Israel? I know that Israel, I think, also attacked Yemen, if I'm not mistaken. So how much, and is there any other

sort of mechanism that Iran can deploy to attack Israel or, I imagine there also, I mean, this is an open threat from Iran that if you assist in any way, and I want to get to that American role in a moment, but what are the other mechanisms that Iran has without having a Hezbollah or Syria or maybe even any type of, I mean, Western Iraq is usually not available to Iran. And in my understanding, that tends to be more Sunni. What do they have left? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know right now in the very intense fog of war, you know, exactly where Iranian military capabilities stand.

They have shown the ability, including last night, to send ballistic missiles into Israel to strike an oil refinery in Haifa, to kill some number of Israeli civilians, not sure that their targeting looks like it's in great shape. So that's very much in flux, but they have extensive ballistic missile capability, and they could continue to use that for as long as it's possible for them. But yeah, their proxies are down but not out.

The Houthis can also join in, as they've done in exchanging fire with Israel before. And the Iranian-aligned militias in Iraq, I think, are of particular concern. They could target U.S. service members in Iraq and Syria as well. So that's something to watch for. In addition, Iran could escalate by going after Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and it could try to block the Strait of Hormuz to disrupt oil. So I think if you think about what is Iran's strategy here, they don't have great moves in the short term, it seems to me. But if they're going to dig in and take a beating from Israel for a while, figuring that their population will, unite rather than divide as a result. Then I think they can make life difficult for the United States

and Donald Trump as perhaps oil prices spike. There's a threat that U.S. service members will be targeted and a wider war that could draw in the United States directly, which President Trump doesn't want to happen. So, you know, that's something I think to look for. It's a little, unfortunately, it's a little bit easier for me to imagine a long-term scenario right now for this conflict than how we get out of it within days. How much, you mentioned UAE in Saudi Arabia, that Iran may attack, but it felt like in the past year or so, there has been some form of a reproachment between,

Saudi Arabia and Iran, who have been, at least as far as I can tell, for the last couple of decades, almost, like, you know, waging a proxy war over the course of that full 20 years, it seems like, but there was some type of reproachment. How much, how much of that reproachment was real? What are the possibilities that Saudi Arabia is sort of like sitting on the sideline maybe cheering Israel on in, you know, in private? Like, what's that dynamic? So there was a real rapprochement may be like bordering on too strong a word, but there was a real re-engagement diplomatically,

a movement toward a cold peace rather than a hot one. So there was real movement. And I think that's a good thing right now insofar as it will. disinclined Iran to strike those countries. And one big difference between the negotiations that led to the JCPO and or Obama and the current negotiations under Trump was that the Gulf states were opposed to the former but actually supported the latter. So that's maybe a bit of good news in terms of regional dynamics. But the flip side of that is, you know,

it's going to be that much harder, I think, for there to be some kind of normalization between the Gulf states and Israel. So if you're thinking about, I think from an American perspective, there's always this, like, fantasy that, well, can we get to some better place in the Middle East so the U.S. isn't drawn in?

You know, can we knit together some kind of stable equilibrium and we can fantasize about something right now but it looks very, very far away and ironically, if you think about the trip that Trump took

to the Gulf, which was meant to be his first foreign trip of this term, you know, he kind of painted this story of a Middle East that was on the rise because old hatreds were being put aside and the U.S. wasn't doing nation-building regime-change wars anymore.

It was going to be more transactional and favor peace and stability. Okay, that's interesting. But this is just not a region that is primed to break out in peace and stability anytime soon. It's very hard to see that happening from this current round of military conflict between Israel and Iran. But we keep telling ourselves that that's the story. You remember, the Biden administration also had its version of that story, which it promulgated just before the October 7th attacks. And then, we're back into managing crises and risking the U.S. direct involvement in more conflict. How, what is your sense?

I mean, there are two sort of like competing stories as to Trump's role in this. One is that he was buttering up the Iranians, making them feel confident, following these negotiations and, you know, pursuing peace, and that it was all a ruse to make the Iranians confidence so that the chief negotiator was sleeping in his own home, that the several. of the top leadership of the Iranian government were sleeping in their own homes so that Israel could take them out. The other story is that Trump had basically said, don't do it, but didn't say it

forcefully enough. Netanyahu launched the attack. Everybody knows what's going to happen after that. And gave Trump a cover story that made him seem like a superagent that he was actually just doing this to lull them into a false sense of security and not actually seeking peace, which is the one that you think, or is there a different story that makes more

sense? Because it seems to me, if it is the case that he was doing this, I don't know how you negotiate anything ever again. That's a problem, yeah. So I don't know exactly what happened. I think it's a little bit of both. But I think mostly, you know, Trump was not leading the Iranians down a path over several months toward an Israeli strike on Iran. So in that sense, there may have been an element of ruse toward the very end, you know, in the day or two prior to the Israeli strike last week, but I suspect that that was it. And what it looks like, is that, you know, Trump was sincere about trying to have nuclear negotiations.

He did not want Israel to strike Iran, figuring that that would damage negotiations, which is probably correct. But that Netanyahu discussed us with Trump and got something that was not a red light. Maybe he got a green light at some point, I'd say more likely based on what's been reported, He got a yellow light from Trump, but Trump didn't say no or spell out consequences for Netanyahu if he went ahead. Perhaps Netanyahu convinced him that the strike would actually be good for talks. Trump believes in coercive diplomacy. When he initiated these talks, he said there was a 60-day window. Now, he was seemingly willing to put that aside for the sake of,

talks which were supposed to occur yesterday. So, you know, Trump, I wouldn't take that too seriously, but Trump believes in imposing pressure and negotiating at the point of a gun. And so the Israeli strike might have occurred to him, you know, as somewhat in keeping with that strategy. And since the strikes began, he has repeatedly said that he still wants to get a deal. But it's going to be really difficult to get a deal because, yes, will the Iranians trust the United States? Will the Iranians believe that the United States can keep Israel from attacking Iran again? And can the Iranians agree to a deal that Israel would think is a win for itself? seemingly that deal would have to be quite draconian for Iran, which would then entail significant

political risk for the Iranian leadership, because it would just look like a defeat and a humiliation. So hard to see how we put negotiations back together. And Trump, though, reportedly has said, do not go after Kameney, and which I guess, Yes, ostensibly would be his way of being magnanimous. Has the Israeli strikes, and maybe this is outside your portfolio, but in some places I have read that the strikes have been, do not seem to have a strategy that one would take if one was looking for regime change, and that it, they have been they have hit in sort of more popular places in iran uh that they haven't been necessarily focused on you know taking out the weak antelope as it were like to create fissures within because they're already existing fissures within iran society um there is a

there has always been a significant um both reformed form, I guess, movement in Iran and perhaps even a counter-revolutionary one to, and Iran has a history of both like, well, autocratic dictators, but prior to that with Mossadegh, and the United States CIA was very involved in getting rid of Mossadegh, but there is a history of of some form of democracy there um it does not appear at least from what i've read that israel has been attempting to attack in a way that it would exacerbate those fissures but instead has attacked in such a way that has um that is appealed to national that that would create a sense of nationalism within iran which understandable um but uh what what's your take on that

I think it's hard to know what a viable strategy to attempt regime change through airstrikes would actually look like. That is not something that has succeeded before. There's some recent scholarship on this. So air strikes just do not tend to be enough to produce regime change. Now, you know, you could argue that striking... And they're so blue. I mean, it's like literally there's a force from coming from the sky, and everybody is subjected to that.

And it creates a sort of, it seems to me that it would create a tightening of national bonds. From what I've seen, that's what's happened. And I don't, I want to be cautious about trying to sort through the empirical information. But that is certainly what I would predict based on what I know about how conflicts like this. how they occur. And, you know, it's also the case that Iran did not attack Israel first. So from an Iranian perspective, this looks like an aggressive Israeli attack on their country. You know, if you want to ascend, if you're looking to jockey for position in a post-regime situation, you probably also want to look like a national patriot. Right. And that means not welcoming

strikes, aggressive strikes, by Israel on your country. But, you know, there's no clean way to try to take out a regime. So Israel has targeted leading regime figures who are often in populated areas, and that creates so-called collateral damage. And we'll also have to see whether we see escalating strikes in terms of the civilian damage. There were reports just before we spoke about a wider targeting of the capital city, Tehran. Where is Russia or China in this? I mean, are they, is there an attempt at the UN? Are they leading any type of attempt there?

Are they weighing their options as to how they would weigh in in this situation? How do they react to this? they i think it's something of an opportunity for them um in the court of international public opinion uh you know trump said that he spoke to vladimir putin and putton offered to mediate um so we'll see about that um but you know the security council whatever moves they make in the security council it's going to be to just benefit from uh negative perceptions of a u.s enabled Israeli strike and obviously the U.S. would veto anything in the Security Council that they would put forward. You know, so once again, U.S. involvement in a Middle Eastern conflict

will damage the U.S. position more broadly in the world and also in the areas where U.S. policymakers themselves say, are there a strategic? strategic priority, namely East Asia. The United States is now going to beef up its military presence in the region, taking away from the pivot toward Asia that Pentagon planners in this administration had wanted to bring about. And we are, to put it mildly, not out of the woods, in terms of a potential direct U.S. involvement in this war. And I want to emphasize that because I think one thing that the Israelis may be thinking about is, you know, they have a lot of success and the quickest way to end the war comes to be seen as the United States providing the final strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. And so Netanyahu says, Trump, if you'll just order that, which I don't have the capability to do, then Israel is willing to stop and you have a way out of this situation.

You know, I think there's at least a decent chance that Trump would agree to that and hope that Iran backs down and doesn't retaliate directly against the United States. How likely does it seem like Iran in that situation would not retaliate? And how likely do you think it is that that wouldn't inspire perhaps a whole new generation of international terror attacks? yeah so for the short term hard to say it depends how weekend iran has been and whether it just needs a timeout but as you say it's really hard to imagine that iran rethinks its entire foreign policy from there and decides that it should just focus on building its economy and become pro-western and decide that it had been struck for just reasons. This is not the way states behave. This is not consistent with what we've seen from Iran for a long time. So I then worry about getting off to

the races with a new round of violence, perhaps through different methods than what we've seen late. It does not look like what happens from herein is necessarily going to be positive unless for whatever reason Israel decides that they're done. Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow at the

American State Craft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Sorry, it's always a bummer. Would I come on? You know, if it makes you feel any better, there's a lot of guess. that we have on these days where that that tends to be the um the situation but maybe uh we'll try

and book you uh when when peace breaks out uh we'll make sure that you're the first person we call uh in that event so we so you can deliver some good news it's a deal it's a deal i'll be standing by my email thanks stephen all right folks uh we got to take a um break um um and head to the, um, a fun half. We got a lot of IMs, uh, ranging from, uh, folks in Wisconsin. 500 people came out in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, which is a town of 6,000. Bingo dango wants to talk about the New York Times effectively endorsing Cuomo without explicitly saying it. Um, the, there was a,

It was a Zoron rally at an indoor rally. About 3,000 people, which... The Terminal 5 one? Yeah, I think it was like over the weekend. I don't remember anything remotely like that during any Democratic primary. for mayor I just I'm completely unaware of it

there was a joke tweet going around and saying if you tweet out Zoran Mamdani you instantly get like a thousand retweets and it's not actually that far off like it's I posted the breakfast club clip of him talking about free buses and it's been seen about millions of people it is um you know it's hard to in the main it is hard to sort of uh to extrapolate because there are times where

you know visibility simply does not equate votes i've told the story many times i was up in new hampshire in oh eight uh covering the republican primary and i remember going through manchester in the greater manchester area and going my god uh Ron Paul, he could be a sleeper here because everywhere you look, there were people out there with Ron Paul signs. And it just turned out that everybody who voted for Ron Paul also held a sign. They were just incredibly enthusiastic people. now the only thing I would say is that in the context of a primary you know the New Hampshire primary in 08 every there's a lot of media attention and everybody in Manchester New Hampshire in New Hampshire for that matter is aware of it like that's that was their thing a New York Democratic mayoral primary in the middle of the summer just generally does not create that level of enthusiasm or awareness.

I mean, people, there are numerous times in the past where, like, the primary comes and goes and nobody knows it's even happened. And so this is unique, I think. I think that that, if my understanding is that rally was for volunteers also, which is wild because, you know,

it's not just 3,000 people who, like, schlepped out, to spend their Saturday that way. Those are people who, in addition to that, have been volunteering to go knock on people's doors and hand out stuff. So it says something about the intensity and size of his volunteer army. Yeah, like 3000 is a measurable number of votes

that you would have in a primary, never mind volunteers in a mayoral primary. So we will see. I mean, Michael Bloomberg has opened up the coffers for Cuomo, as I imagine other right-wing billionaires have. So we'll see. But early voting is now. You can go now and vote.

I think it's every day, just about every day. You can search. Oh, darn it. I had it. I can't remember. While you're looking for that. Maybe will you get the voting site and we'll put it on. But you can either.

Google where is my New York City Democratic primary polling place find your poll site find your poll site is that what it is yeah the addresses vote vote dot NYC but vote dot NYC it's super easy there should be some kind of penalty if your cost your money spent for each vote exceeds a certain amount which Cuomo's is destined to do oh my God yes also before we head to the fun half. I just want to say thank you to, uh, listener Ann. Um, she had, uh, I think it was, I don't know if we ever made it, but she had, uh, I think it was the runner up in the, um, uh, in the, uh, in the, uh, Vigonia sweeps that we had, Senza Vigonia. And I can't remember what Senza means,

but, uh, she sent, uh, this mug. I think it means ashes or ash, right? I'm not sure but somebody who speaks Italian might know Without It means without So without shame

Without shame Oh yes Okay yes So it flips it on its head It's beautiful It's a beautiful It's a beautiful mug I think you can probably find him

At her site Check out pick Tricks Design.com Pick P-I-C-T-R-I-X-D-Sign.com com and folks if you want to support this program go to join the majority report dot com when you do you help this show survive and thrive and then you get the free half

free of commercials and then you get to i.m us on the fun half also just coffee dot co-op fair trade coffee hot chocolate use the coupon code majority get 10% off try the mr blend I wonder if they're going to keep the WTF blend there. They probably will. Why would they? Do you think we could take the market share? I mean, we could promote it, and we could talk Turkey over this thing.

Matt, Left Reckoning. Yeah, Left Reckoning for patrons, patreon.com, for us, Left Reckoning. David and I talked about one of the great essays on Israel, Palestine, by Tony Jutt, came out in 2003 in the New York View of Books called Israel, The Alternative. I went into the history about it a little bit, but rereading it. It's one of the first things I ever read on the subject.

I remember talking about it with Michael. He made a big impact on him, too. And it's one that I think it's hard to make a more concise argument, and it's crazy how well it's aged since... We should find... ...tragically, it's aged since 2020. Janine and I had Tony in, at least on two occasions. I put that on the best of once before. Yeah, and I think we had him in about Israel.

In particular, we're going to dig up that stuff. Aging to me is realizing that Tony Jett's way better essayist than Christopher Hitchens. Sorry. There you have it, folks. I don't intend to agree with you. He was a very, very smart guy. Insane. His book post-war, which is a huge tone, like,

history about Europe after World War II is essential. If you have a credit on audible or something, I'll pick that up. We should try and dig up some of those interviews these days. Maybe make that like a bonus members thing or occasionally roll them out. Folks, see you in the fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now. But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow.

What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on for, hold on for a second. Emma, welcome to the program. Hey. Matt.

What is up, everyone? No, me. You did it. Fun, hat. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. On behalf.

Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint. Everyone, I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Women's... Stop talking for a second.

Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But dude, you want to smoke this? Seven, eight. Yes. Is it safe? Yes? Is it me?

Is it me? It is you. Um, it's it's me? I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind?

We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to go to life. Libertarians. They're so stupid though. Common sense says, of course. Gobble Degas. We fucking nailed him. So what's 79 plus 21?

Challenge met. I'm positively quivering. I believe 96, I want to say. 857. 210. 35. 501. 1⁄2.

911 for instance. $3,400, $1,900. $6.5,4, 3 trillion dollars sold. It's a zero-sum game. Actually, you're making think less. But let me say this. Poop. You can call it satire.

Sam goes to satire. On top of it all? Yeah. My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We've seen you. All right, folks.

Folks. Folks. It's just the week being weeded out, obviously. Yeah. Sundow guns out. I don't know. But you should know. People just don't like to entertain ideas.

I have a cool. Question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it. I do love that. Look, got a jump. You've got to be quick. I get a jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o'clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick. So screw him.

Sent to a goulon? Outrage. Like, what is wrong with you? Love you, bye. Love you. Bye-bye.