The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3523 - Trump Bombs Iran, Mamdani Surges in New Poll w/ Matt Duss, Eskander Sadeghi, Anthony Conwright

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

It’s Monday, and everything is fine... On today's show It's the NYC Primary Election Eve and an Emerson College Poll shows Zohran Mamdani winning in round 8 of the rank choice voting.  We talk to Matt Duss over the conflict in Iran. Check out his podcast Undiplomatic and his work at the Center for International Policy Also joining us is Professor Eskander Sadeghi for a discussion on the history that has led us to this point in Iran. Check out his piece for Jacobin Plus, Anthony Conwright joins us to discuss the NYC Mayoral Primary and his piece in The Nation “Will Black Americans Vote for a Socialists” In the Fun Half The GOP continues to fold themselves into pretzels as they reframe their own previous statements on Iran. Vinny from PBD attempts to be the voice of reason by pointing out the similarities between Iran and Iraq…attempts. Marco Rubio goes on Face the Nation to argue that whether Iran has expressed intent of nuclear weaponization is irrelevant to US policy. ICE agents continue to brutally and violently terrorize communities. Mahmoud Khalil Returns Home, greeted by AOC and heads straight to Columbia University to continue his fight to end the genocide in Gaza. All that and more, folks. 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: COZY EARTH:  Go to cozyearth.com and use code MAJORITYREPORT for up to 40% off Cozy Earth’s best-selling temperature-regulating sheets, apparel, and more.  NAKED WINES: Head to NakedWines.com/MAJORITY, click ‘Enter Voucher’ and put in code MAJORITY for both the code AND password to get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99 with shipping included. That’s $100 off your first six bottles SUNSET LAKE: Use the code LEFTISBEST to save 20% at SunsetLakeCBD.com  on all their farm fresh CBD products for people and pets. Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech 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/

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We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Matt Duss, Executive Vice President, the Center for International Policy and co-host of the undiplomatic pod on America's attack on Iran, also on the program to discuss that attack. Eskender Saugidi Burjerdi, senior lecturer in history in the Middle East at the University of York in the UK. then Anthony Conrad, writer, discussing his peace in the nation, will black Americans vote for a socialist, Zoran Mamdani?

Meanwhile, U.S. enters Israel's war bombing Iran, and yet Trump officials admit they have no idea if it successfully destroyed Iran's nuclear sites. Meanwhile, Israel continues to. to turn Gaza aid sites into a killing field. In New York City, mayoral election is tomorrow, and Mamdani catches Cuomo in the latest Emerson poll. Trump's beautiful disaster bill, polling is in the toilet

as the Senate races to pass it, and the parliamentarian strips out nearly a dozen of its provisions. Judge denies government motion to hold Abrega Garcia. ICE, however, is looking to detain Garcia as soon as he's released. Mahmoud Khalil is released on conditioned bail and NATO to meet tomorrow in the wake of being in the dark on the U.S. attack on Iran. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks so much for joining us. Emma on honeymoon. We were going to have a special guest co-host for the day, but he missed his plane last night from California. Yep. Kids today. You can never get anywhere on time. Uh, but this is why you guys don't get invited places.

Hopefully, uh, we will have Hassan Piker on the show next time he's in New York. Um, or he's probably flying in this morning. So we'll see. I don't know. Um, we got a lot to get to today. Obviously, our schedule has been, uh, completely upended because of the attack on Iran this weekend. We had Adam Gaffney scheduled today to talk about the, uh, Medicaid provisions in the, uh, so-called big, beautiful bill. we will have him on friday to discuss those in the meantime um uh this poll showing zoran momdani up is fascinating and exciting tomorrow is the election you have seen every democratic establishment figure there is the old ones come out in support of Cuomo. I'm talking about Bill Clinton. I don't know if these two guys met at some type of

sexual harassment, sexual harassers support group or what I don't know. But Clinton came out in favor of Cuomo. Clyburn the other day came out in favor of Cuomo. But Cuomo has a problem. And that is that the enthusiasm is with Mondani, and that is a bigger issue in a primary than it would be in a general election. In a general election, people just go out and vote because they know about the election. It's in the news constantly. They don't want a Republican to win. In a primary, enthusiasm can take you a far away, even if you're fighting against literally tens of millions of dollars poured into the race by people like Mike Bloomberg and Ken Langone's folks

and Palantir, all of these right-wingers. DoorDash. Door-Dash. They're all funding Andrew Cuomo. This poll came out. You can see this is the New York Democratic primary tracking. This is from Emerson polling along with Pix 11 local station in the Hill. Moemone, leading Mamdani, 35% to 32%. And look at those trajectories. Mamdani gained 10 points on the initial ballot test rising from 22% to 32%. That's relative to Emerson's last month's poll, while Cuomo gained 1.34% to 35%.

And this polling was done over the weekend. I'm sorry, was done, yes, I believe it was over the weekend. The ranked choice voting simulation over eight rounds ends with Mamdani at 52%. And Cuomo at 48%. Voters who have already cast their ballots doing New York City's early voting period break for Mamdani. Again, they did a poll, I think it was like 850 people. there's a 3 or 4% margin of error. Many of the people that they contacted had already voted, or at least some.

Mamdani held a 10-point lead over Cuomo, 41 to 31% on early voters. Among those who plan to vote on election day or had not yet voted at the time of the survey, Cuomo leads with 36% followed by Mamdani at 31%. We got some images to show you as to why this. is very very problematic for quomo right now it's like 95 degrees in new york city i walked to work uh three hours ago and was sweating my buttocks off and folks know i'm old but i'm spry uh voters under 50 break from um dani by a two to one margin Cuomo leads

50 to 59 year old 63 to 37% because my cohort of voters are the worst people in the country we were raised in the Reagan era PJ O'Rourke and what's like

he was on Spin City and the family ties Michael J. Fox was like a little right winger and we all fortunately for me I escaped but just wearing sweater vests

and I didn't adopt anything else um Hispanic voters support Cuomo 60 to 40 percent black voters favor Cuomo 62 to 38 percent we're going to talk to Anthony Conright about that later

Asian voters 79 to 21 percent Mamdani leads Cuomo among college educated voters 62 to 38%. This survey was taken from the 18th to the 20th. So there was still a couple of days of early voting left. And here is why this is a shot on, was it on Sunday. Is this on Sunday?

This is from yesterday. That was the last day of early voting. Yes, Sunday. Today's Monday. Okay. Last day of early voting at the Museum of Natural History. And this is why Andrew Cuomo has a problem with relying, having to rely so heavily on election day voting. First of all, you have Mom Donnie beating Cuomo.

Two to one with voters who are under the age of 50. Speaking as someone who is over the age of 50, I can tell you my sensitivity to heat has grown exponentially each year into my 50s. Here is what the line looked like outside of the Museum of Natural History on the final day of early voting. Now, I don't know how long people are waiting in that line, but I can tell you they're not going to wait that long if it's a hundred degrees out in new york city and i don't think they're all shaded by scaffolding like that exactly so um obviously look so much about this is predicting you know who's going to come out to vote if you watch the if you've watched any television in new york city for the past four weeks you have been inundated with negative mom dana ads

the Cuomo people have gone completely berserk they have so much money to pour out the door but it's also an incompetent campaign that failed to get their matching funds so if you haven't voted in New York City and you are a New York City voter understand your vote tomorrow is going to be even more heavily weighted insofar as your ability to be your ability to get out and vote it's probably going to be offsetting multiple votes on the other side people who intended to vote for Cuomo

but give up because it's too hot so this is a big big deal it's a big deal go back and look at the press after Adams won in 2024 he was considered i'm sorry 2022 he was considered to be Nate silver said he was like one of his top choices to be in that presidential candidate i'm not saying that mom donnie's going to do that but traditionally something like this

has very very big impact nationally so there you go um it's exciting stuff here is a video of an elderly man speaking about Andrew Cuomo. Do we have that one? Just to inspire you. Go ahead. That he's a fucking asshole. I was one of the people that, you know, unfortunately, was here when he was sticking,

of people in here that had COVID and they were side by side with us instead of them, you know, being on their own unit. People getting coughing and other people getting infected and that shit and led to

a lot of people dying. A lot of people getting sick. I even got sick. You know, it was bodies being carried out of here left and right while they compliment this man on doing a good job when he had actually did a fucked-up job.

He fucked up a lot of people like. He took a lot of lives away because of that shit. They wasn't planned for that shit right. And he could have prevented a lot of things from happening the way that it did, especially in here. If I could say something to the next mayor in New York, I would tell him not to do the same dumb shit that Cuomo did to us during COVID. COVID, and to take heed and realize that

people in nursing homes matter and treat us better. Anything else you want to share? There you go. Appreciate the sentiment. We'll probably get demonetized because of that, but that was worth it.

Money well spent. Exactly. happy to services in kind um in a moment we'll be talking about dust president at the center for the international policy executive vice president at the center for international policy co-host of the undiplomatic pod um it is super hot in this city my air conditioning always at home underperforms it has uh for ages it's long story i don't want to get into it too much uh but the beauty is i've got fans and then on top of that i sleep on temperature regulating sheets it's cozy earth's bamboo sheets they temperature regulate

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We are back, Sam Cedar on the Majority Report, Emma Vigland out this week. What a welcome back to the program, Executive Vice President, the Center for International Policy, co-host of the undiplomatic pod Matt Duss Matt we've talked in the past about the potential

for something like this give me your sense of of how surprised were you I mean if you go back even like three weeks ago that the U.S.

would attack the Iranians as of three weeks ago even just over a week ago i mean just up until the moment the news broke of israel launching its attacks it was two thursdays to go it seemed that you know diplomacy was moving along and we could get a deal i mean there were clearly some some gaps you know trump seems to have landed on this in you know demand for zero enrichment in iran which i think most people understand is a non-starter and unfortunately i think a lot of the people who are pushing him to to make that a demand understand it's a non-starter because they intended it as a poison pill

for the negotiations. But Stephen, it still seemed to me that, you know, Whitkoff was committed to it. Iranians and Americans were talking to each other, which is, which is, it's good to be able to kind of narrow those gaps. But then, you know, once, once Israel attacked, and it's, the reporting started to come out about how Trump eventually went along with that, even if it wasn't a bright green light, it was enough of a yellowish light that the Netanyahu went ahead and did what he did, making an enormous bet that Trump would eventually join in. And it seemed likely that, given that Trump had sort of folded under pressure to support what Israel was doing, he would eventually fold and do what he did Saturday night.

Well, just to go back for just a moment in terms of like Trump's demands in the context and negotiations, were there other ones? I mean, I remember the original, in the original JPOCA, or I'm just, yes, almost, yeah. That the, I was close, that the biggest sort of like complaints of the neo-conservatives was that this was just a deal about nuclear proliferation as opposed to getting Iran to stop funding their proxy organizations to a whole host of issues that they had. Was that included in the asks by the Trump administration? Not to my knowledge, and you're right, that was one of the complaints that Neocons had was that this non-proliferation agreement didn't deal with things that aren't non-proliferation. But Trump, you know, as far as I know, yes, I mean, I'm sure these things were being discussed,

Iran's ballistic missiles and support for proxies, you know, extremist groups around the region. But this was still pretty focused on the nuclear program as far as I know. Um, my understanding is we don't really have a sense of what the, uh, how effective, uh, the U.S. was at ending, uh, Iran's, um, nuclear program. Um, do you have, have you heard anything to that effect? I mean, I think we can say quite definitively that the United States and Israel have not ended Iran's nuclear program. I think just starting with satellite photos, you can see that there's damage done to the Fordo facility. Unsurprisingly, it dropped, you know, B-2 bombers dropped, I think, the biggest non-nuclear weapon that the United States has several times on this mountain facility. But still, it's a big mountain and stuff is inside hardened bunkers deep, deep under that mountain. I would encourage folks to look at Jeffrey Lewis.

He's an analyst at the Monterey Institute. I'm sorry, the Middlebury Institute in Monterey, California. He had a long tweet thread based on a piece he'd written where he says, you know, tactically, yes, this stuff's impressive, but this has at best, as far as we can tell right now, set back Iran's program several months. Again, it's hard to say for sure because Iran, from what I've heard, concluded that Trump was going to do this.

They concluded this a couple weeks ago. So they started transferring material to different places. There are, you know, Fordo is kind of the big facility that people do know about. Everyone has long estimated there are facilities we don't know about. And Iran had told the IAEA that at some point it was going to continue, it was going to open a new enrichment facility. And you can bet when they announced that facility, they would not be just like breaking ground for it on that day. It would be something that had essentially already created. So, yeah, it seems from.

the estimates I'm seeing these attacks, this war, this grave violation of international law has managed to set back Iran's nuclear program a fraction of what the JCPOA did. I want to try and digging a little bit more into like, you know, what the goal here is. And, you know, like why Trump did this. But let's start with Israel, because it seems to me that Israel has, at one point, and I don't know how many months ago it was, planned for this, in the sense that they take out Hezbollah, they go deep into Syria, they attempt to degrade Yemen's capacity, obviously they, after the four-week, you know, truce in Gaza, they went on to further decimate And now, like, you know, a full-on starvation campaign, essentially, with the Palestinians there.

But Iran's capacity to strike back seems to me has been diminished. I don't, you know, I don't know how much, but certainly it's been diminished in so far as, like, if Hezbollah still had its capacity, they would be sending rockets into northern Israel by now. If Hamas had its capacity, they'd be sending rockets into southern Israel by now. If Yemen, you know, had increased capacity, they would also, I mean, I imagine that they, they, I mean, they have a little bit in the wake of the bombing campaign that Israel started against Iran a week or two ago. But it seems like Israel has been planning this and that this is more about regime change than anything else. I mean, because it's clear even the U.S. did not – this is not like a quick one-and-done type of situation. Right. No, I mean, there's a couple things there. One is first – the last part – first is, yes, at this point, it seems very, very clear that Israel's goal is regime change.

I mean, it's bombing schools, it's bombing police stations. It bombed the gates of Evan Prison just a few hours ago, a notorious prison where a lot of dissidents and activists are taken and often tortured by the regime. So it's bombing symbols of the regime. It's not just bombing nuclear facilities. And I think that's ultimately what they want to try and draw Donald Trump into. And if he's going to try, if he just wants to do this one-and-done strike, which, again, I wish he hadn't done it, but now that he's done it, I hope that's what it is. That's obviously a much bigger proposition, and the idea that anyone thinks that this will turn out, well, just boggles my mind.

But now we have to go back in what you talked about, you know, over the course of, you know, the past whatever it is 20 months since October 7, you'll notice that Israel steadily, you know, started acting in a much more escalatory faction, wherever it wanted, whether, you know, obviously obliterating Gaza and then, you know, taking action in Lebanon and then Syria as well, once the Assad regime fell, you know, it's occupying parts of Syria right now. It has bombed Yemen. And again, it has genuine concerns with Hezbollah, with the Houthis. Syria, it's much, much less clear. But now, you know, again, having weakened Iran's partners in exactly the way you said, And kind of what Iran used to have what is known as strategic depth. I mean, that was the goal of forming all these relationships and supporting these groups across the region was just to have different levers that they could pull, you know, and, you know, as a deterrent to keep Israel or the United States or anyone else from doing what is happening now, that those levers have been degraded. But it seems that if you want to, like, apply a strategy to what Israel has been doing, and in part it's hard to apply a strategy because, Let's also remember a lot of this, as we have discussed before, is driven by Netanyahu's own political imperatives.

I mean, he needs to keep this war going to stay out of jail, essentially. But if we want to see a pattern here, and this is where, you know, if not toppling the regime, at least severely weakening the regime and Iran makes sense, because that's kind of what Israel and some in the United States want to see. just a severely degraded region, if not collapsed states, then very weak states, that, you know, the United States and by proxy, the United States, you know, local sheriff, Israel, in this case, can kind of exert power. What, what, I mean, this seems like a huge risk to me from Donald Trump's perspective. What is, what do you think is actually driving this? I mean, they were, 60 days is not that long to have a deadline for these negotiations. That seems absurd to me.

And it, you know, Donald Trump wanted to be, you know, is portraying himself as a peacemaker. He already made his deals to get money from Miriam Adelson. And it didn't include backing up Israel's regime change. what is your sense that that is actually driving this is it just he you know he's got people i mean he pretty you know he specifically left hegsith out he specifically is ignoring um the all the intelligence that says this is not an ongoing threat yes right what what what is what is their thinking i mean with trump you know it's it it could be just very simple that you know enough people got into his ear and convinced him to change course. I think part of what I've heard is that

Netanyahu and others were working on him really hard, saying the Iranians are taking you for a ride, they're treating you like a sucker, they're not negotiating in good faith. Listen, we saw how effective Netanyahu was at manipulating Joe Biden and Joe Biden's team. He's done this with a number of presidents. Again, that's not to absolve the U.S. of our very clear responsibility, not to get suckered into this stuff by Netanyahu, but he's really good. at working the U.S. bureaucracy. And he certainly has allies within the administration. There was an ongoing debate between the administration's hawks

and the more administration's more restraint-committed folks. People like J.D. Vance, my understanding that Haguezeth himself had been more on that side. Obviously, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, who most recently put out that assessment that you're talking about, that the U.S. intelligence community continues to assess that Iran has not made decision. to obtain a nuclear weapon.

So, you know, I think Trump obviously was convinced to go ahead and yellowish green light the Israeli attack. And for what I've read, and I find this convincing, is that that popped off. And he spent the night watching Fox News, hailing this, all the, you know, the footage of this impressive stuff that the Israelis can do and they can do some really impressive stuff. And, you know, when the initial news of the attack broke,

you saw the statement from Secretary Rubio saying, oh, well, Israel's doing this. We're not part of it. this is they've taken these steps on their own but by the morning trump puts out a truth social post you know clearly trying to associate him more with the war saying oh yes it's just you know just wonderful and trying to take some credit for it so i think he's unfortunately just been convinced that this is this is how you do maga let me ask you about this and this is complete speculation and conjecture in my love because it it seems it seems it seems

like, I mean, I give very little credit to Donald Trump as a thinker in any way. But one thing that he does have a sense of is like his own, protecting his own political hide. And it's hard for me to imagine what the, what the upside is for him on this. But I wonder, you know, Saudi Arabia has been so quiet relative to it's like, you know, what was a very heated proxy war up until i feel like a year ago maybe uh you know less um and you know as late as like you know a year or two years ago it seemed that everything that was happening in the middle east was a function in some way of this war uh proxy war between iran and saudi arabia uh to to what extent do you think there is you know the interests of

of those Gulf states, maybe sitting back also encouraging Trump in a very, very quiet way to do something like this. I mean, this is clearly picking up from the neocon vision that started in the Iraq war. Like, we're going to go to Iraq, then we're going to go to Syria, then we're going to go to Iran. And we're going to, the Middle East is going to be basically like Disneyland with democracy. And I wonder if that dream wasn't revived less from an ideological standpoint in Donald Trump's mind, but in terms of there's a lot of money for me here, and it's worth a lot to the Saudis for me to engage in this. Well, that's just it. He was getting that money anyway.

And you're right, up until a few years ago, especially during the era of the JCPOA when Obama was trying to make a deal. with the Iranians. There was strong opposition from the Saudis, from the Emirates, and obviously from the Israelis. But let's remember a few years ago, there was a Saudi Iran-Datant that was brokered by China. Muhammad bin Salman, you know, obviously I have a lot of problems with him. He's actually been trying to have better relations with Iran. You know, he's been trying to have better relations with a lot of actors in the region. They've basically squashed the beef with Qatar. So, you know, while I'm not going to say that they're displeased at Iran, you know, the Iranian government taking a beating, I don't think this is something that the Saudis were

really strongly advocating because they're kind of getting what they want from Donald Trump anyway. And so to have the Israelis and the Americans now coming behind them just, you know, unilaterally going in and smashing up Tehran and another major Middle Eastern capital, that's not something that really sits well with the region's publics. And Mohammed bin Salman and some of these other leaders are conscious of public opinion. Interesting. And so give me your, I mean, it's anybody's guess what happens next. But I guess it has to do with, A, the likelihood of Iran retaliating.

And then it feels like it could be off to the races. What is your sense? Right. I mean, so what we're seeing today, I mean, there was a few hours ago, there was news that the Qatari government had urged Americans in the countries to shelter in place. Always a great phrase that means trouble is on the way. They've closed Qatari airspace. I don't know if this indicates that Iran could be striking El-Dade base, which is the U.S.'s biggest base in the Middle East. They're just outside Doha Khatar. We did see, I mean, my senses, even before Trump attacked, I mean, Iran was signaling that they want to de-escalate. They did not want the U.S. to get involved, and they were ready to de-escalate, but they were not ready to negotiate peace while Israel was still attacking them, understandably. But let's think back to, you know, 2020, January 2020 when Trump assassinated Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force and kind of Iran's like regional mastermind and planner for all of Iran's kind

of proxy groups. Iran responded with an hour's long, first of all, it signaled that it was going to respond. It needed to respond, but this response would be a one-off. They did not want to escalate further. But then they launched an hours-long missile attack against al-Assad base in Iraq that nearly killed 150 U.S. troops who were there sheltering in these bunkers as this attack went on. And then it came out slowly little by little that over 100 of them had sustained traumatic brain injuries. Now, Trump himself, it was very interesting. They initially denied that there were any casualties. And then little by little, they started to say, okay, a few people were hurt and then it finally came out. No, a hundred were pretty severely injured. But that

signal that Trump understood, okay, I want this to de-escalate too. And if it immediately comes out rather than in dribs and drabs of that there were actual serious casualties, it could create political pressure on me to have to escalate. I mean, so that does indicate a level of political intelligence, or at least understanding, like, I could be pushed into something that I don't want to do. hope that there will be something similar that happens now. I hope you're right. Matt Duss, I have a feeling we'll probably be in touch over the coming weeks. Really appreciate your insights here and analysis.

And we will link to the Center for International Policy and your undidiplimatic pod. Thanks a lot, Sam. All right, we're going to take a quick break. and when we come back we're going to be talking to senior lecturer in the history of the Middle East

at the University of York Skander, Sagadi Borgjid Borgjordi just after this. You know,

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you know, and so, you know, and so, You know, and I'm going to be able to be. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to be.

Yeah. Thank you. We are back, Sam Cedar, on the Majority Report, Emma Viglin, off this week. I want to welcome to the program Senior Lecture in History of the Middle East at the University of York. Asconder, Sadegh, Degi. Asconder, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Great to be with you. Let's start from your sense of the forces that led to, I mean, I think, like,

uh the israeli sort of um desire to attack iran has been in existence for uh my entire adult life as far as i can tell from like the you know net and yaw's been talking about this for 30 years um what do you have a sense of what the other players in the region like what their perspective is on this and what might be inspiring uh trump and and and the forces that may be sort of acting upon that because i know you have a piece uh today in the jacobin about the uh shah's son um well i think the shah's son which we can get to in a little bit is more of actually um a useful idiot and like a propaganda tool which is which is basically being used by the israelis um very somewhat effectively i guess but but not all too effectively. Obviously, there's a grander, kind of, I think, geopolitical

agenda work. Obviously, this animosity and hostility to Iran has really defined Benjamin Netanyo's entire political career. I mean, from the mid-90s, he's been harping on about the imminent threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. So much so that actually even an Israeli scholar, a scholar by name Hago Ram, wrote a very good book called Iranophobia. in which he kind of explored how Iran really was a way in which Israeli elite managed to deflect from sort of neoliberalism, neoliberalization in Israeli society. So many of the contradictions defining Israeli society, Iran has sort of been this perpetual boogeyman, I think, and sort of presented as this existential threat. Yeah, and of course, you know, Iran has this history, a long history, going back to the revolution of 1979, obviously supporting the Palestinian cause. defines itself against American hegemony and Israeli kind of dominance in

the region. And I guess we're sort of seeing this long arc of various regimes which have been ousted or overthrown, many of which were obviously seen as posed threats, I guess, to Israeli domination of the region. And Iran was always seen as sort of the final obstacle, the final sort of country to take out. in this long list, famously, Wesley Clark spoke about as well, General Wesley Clark spoke about. So I think this is sort of, you know, he saw this as an opportunity, really, in order to force the issue. My senses, I mean, again, and we really don't know the granular detail, of course, but my sense is that, you know, there had been extensive sort of intelligence sharing between the Israelis and obviously the American government,

you know, the Pentagon and so on. I'm pretty sure, you know, that had been shared for some time. And I think it was a matter of timing, really. And I think, obviously, following the fall of Assad, there was, I mean, I'm sure you even, you heard this for the last couple of months that, you know, Iran is the weakest ever been. Now is the time. And I think, obviously, he forced the issue. But he also managed, I think, convinced Donald Trump. And I think, you know, maybe they both have different objectives.

I think Donald Trump's objective was to use the Israeli attacks. one to weaken Iran further and then obviously maybe pursue this attack on Iran's nuclear size, but also potentially uses as leverage, not to negotiate, because I wouldn't call this negotiation to basically to impose what he called, quote, unquote, you know, total surrender. So that's, I think, sort of the lay of the land in the sort of grand scheme of things. Well, you just remind people because in this country, history usually only goes back about three years um and uh in the context of iran it it's as if nothing existed prior to 1979 uh but will you just uh for folks who don't know um uh reiterate the history

going back to nineteen fifty three or 1950 uh when uh mosedek was ousteded in a a CIA, and as far as I know, M1, MI6, M.I.6, yeah. Kuh. Will you just give us a little bit of that history? I mean, I think that is a good place to start. Absolutely. But I think we could even, I won't really go on a long digression, but we could even go back to sort of 1907 when Iran was basically de facto divided into different spheres of influence by Imperial Russia and Britain, where you have the establishment

of BP, you know, what was called Anglo-Iranian, all company at the time. it was basically an enclave which was completely controlled by the British, even we had its own sort of security services. Then you can even move to 1941, where Britain, and again, this time the Soviet Union basically invaded Iran and occupied it. Then, of course, we can move to 1953, where in 1951, sort of the nationalist premier, Mohammed Mossadegh, had decided with, you know, with a lot of sort of a popular mandate, really, and a lot of popular support to nationalize. the Anglo-Iranian oil company, which is today known as BP, British Petroleum. And of course, he was immediately sort of faced with a naval blockade by the British. And then you had ultimately the Eisenhower administration and Churchill government here in the UK plot for his overthrow.

And then he is ultimately obviously overthrown by the MI6 and the CIA. And then subsequently after that, the Shah returns from Rome. and then we have really this steady building up and consolidation of his dictatorship. And obviously, the United States, the CIA, as well as the Mossad, actually, the Israelis had a very, very decisive role actually in building up the infamous Savak, which tortured and executed many, many dissidents in Iran during this period. And that was the source of, you know, this growing enmity because obviously they had, you know, very much the United States was seen as sort of supporting the Shah throughout this period. in a very kind of unprinciical way. I mean, we could even go to sort of 1976, where, you know, the Shah was really buying more American arms per capita than any other power in the world.

And maybe even in absolute terms of that point, he was the biggest purchase of American arms. That's why he was sort of given so much leeway. And he became known as the gendarme of the Persian Gulf, sort of very much carrying out within this broader kind of American hegemonic security architecture, so very much aligned with broader American objectives. in the Persian Gulf region. And Saudi Arabia at that time was more of a junior partner, actually. So, yeah, obviously, this is sort of, you know,

in 19705 years, it was actually one-party state as well. So that's another kind of feather in his cap. And then, of course, he's overthrown in the revolution, which runs between 1977 and 1979, which obviously brought the Islamic Republic ultimately to power. The, that, the Islamic Republic, what was, what was, was the revolution that that took place in 79 how much of it was a function of there were

pro-democratic forces there was i mean i am at i mean i was i was young at the time uh so i don't remember the details but um the there there were multiple sort of like cohorts that were involved in that revolution uh it was that the uh it was that the uh Comini cohort had the most sort of like power, I guess. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the revolution was a broad coalition. It sort of ran

from a liberal nationalist to kind of more religiously inclined sort of nationalists, to Marxist-Leninists, to Maoists, to obviously Islamists as well, but also of various hues. Some that were more influenced, influenced actually by sort of Marxian sort of ideology, some that were closer to the clergy

and sort of the commercial class of the mercantile kind of classes the bazaar. And obviously, I mean, Khomeini was very clearly kind of the unparalleled and undisputed, I think leader of the revolution. I guess not many Iranians necessarily envisioned the constitution that would ultimately emerge in the power struggle to define the post-revolutionary state, however. I'm starting to see some reports on our IM, and I don't know, that it's possible that there was an attack on that U.S. base in Qatar

that Matt Duss had just told us some people were saying was imminent. Yeah. What is your sense of the potential of this being one round of tit for tat as it comes in terms of like in terms of America and that's it? I mean, I'm sure that both maybe the Trump administration,

I have a set, I think up to a point, that that is how maybe the Trump administration has envisioned it. And I also probably think that the Iranians similarly hope for that to be the case. But the problem with these things is that they have a kind of a life of their own. And it's usually where the sort of unpredictable factor, which sort of enters in, where this could spiral. I think that's always been the fear. I mean, obviously, a lot of people are referring back to when Karsim Soleim, General of Karsim Soleimani, was assassinated by the Trump administration in Iraq, again, on a sort of a ruse, sort of luring

there for negotiations, actually was Saudi Arabia, and then he was killed in a third country. And then in retaliation for that, Iran struck, basically telegraphed to head to the Americans to empty out the Ayn al-Assad air base, which they did, and that sort of controlled it. And I guess maybe that has happened. Obviously, I don't have any information in that regard, but I would assume that that is a possibility that may be similarly, because I did gather that already the Qataris had closed their airspace. So, obviously, Qatar is a, I mean, on the one hand, it's a close seller of the United States and hosts, you know, CENTCOM and it's sort of the biggest airbase in the region.

But it is also a friend of the Iranian government as well. They have good, they have cordial relations. So I could imagine Iran basically giving them a heads up, and that's why we saw that. So that would make sense to me. That seems plausible. I mean, if you Google Iran bombs Qatar, you can see reports as early as two, three, four, or five hours ago that it was imminent, which seems to me to be a sufficient amount of time for at least the people on that base to either evacuate or get into shelters or whatever it is that they would do. That doesn't seem like an exactly like a surprise attack, as it were. No, no. I mean, just one thing I would just add that I think is important.

I mean, you have to really understand that Iran from the outset, since the Israeli act of aggression in violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter, Iran has actually consistently been indicating both to the Gulf states that it doesn't want to target them or it doesn't want this to expand and get any more, get any worse. So they have been, because they don't want to alienate the Gulf states, They've actually been trying to indicate that it's the Israelis in particular. And obviously, following, obviously, the American attack,

the Americans obviously very much have a hand in this as seen as a copeligerent. I mean, I guess they already were, even before this. But they've been trying to indicate, I'm trying to show that the Israelis are the key sort of agents of instability, the true sort of agents of chaos. And this is why they've very much been sort of appealing to the UN, appealing to the UN Charter, appealing to their Gulf allies. But I think, obviously, the strikes on Iran's, nuclear sites by the United States was this one, you know, it was obviously just a red line

which just couldn't be allowed to be passed without, without some response. Um, yeah. Um, what is your sense in terms of the stability of the Iranian regime? And what do, do you have any sense of like in the event that it was to sort of become shakier? Who, what entities, um, might take over? and where would their sympathies be? I mean, my sense, at least for the time being, is that there has been a sort of a rallying around the flag or a rallying around the homeland effect.

I mean, this has been remarked. I've remarked on the very outset. I've seen scenes, which really are reminiscent of the 1980s in Iran when basically, obviously, the United States-backed Stalin's invasion, more or less, of Iran and support of that war effort. for eight years. So, I mean, I have seen a fair degree of resilience. Obviously, the, you know, the Iranian state is very unpopular in some quarters. It does, however, have a deep base support. I mean, we need to understand. I mean, it came about through a revolution and then was basically

institutionalized and forged in a war. I mean, the people in the Revolutionary Guards basically fought for an eight-year period, and they saw, you know, they fought in sort of World War I-style trenches. The idea that they're just going to melt away, I think, is for the birds, to be honest with you. And I do think it is resilient. And I think actually, I mean, the things that I'm seeing, and I try to follow their official channels and see what their kind of discourse is. I'm not obviously endorsing that, but I'm trying to get a sense of what they're thinking. And from what I gather, they're ready for a longer campaign. I mean, I think, and from what I understand, I mean, maybe this was a symbolic strike.

at this American air base, but from why I gather, they actually want to draw this out with respect to strikes on the Israelis because I think their main fear, actually, is that Netanyahu then goes back to his public, you know, with the sort of sense of triumphalism and then potentially move to try and normalize strikes on Iran. So I think they're actually going to continue to sort of work out the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in Israel's air defences. And I think, you know, there is a good

chance that they will try to continue that because, you know, Netanyahu's promise that this is going to be a quick lightning campaign and we're going to be triumphant. And actually, you know, the greatest fear. And you also see this amongst Israeli sort of security analysts and so on. I mean, none of their greatest fears that is drawn out, that gets drawn out for weeks. So I think actually they're kind of revving up for that. But yeah, I mean, you know, the Iranian state itself has multiple vulnerabilities, of course. There was a lot of discurs. content. There's been protests, both over the economy, both over the conditions, the political conditions over the state in which women have often been treated. There's been lots of protests

in that regard and discontent. But again, I mean, in conditions of war, what happens that society tends to get militarised, nationalist fervor, you know, it's very predictable. I mean, any, you spoke to any, if you spoke to me beforehand, I could have easily predicted this. I think many, many experts have also said that this would actually happen. And this is really kind of detrimental, I think. If we support, you know, struggles for greater sort of democratic rights and civil rights and labor rights, you know, and sort of a highly militarized society is not going to be conducive to that, obviously. I am skeptical as to that's what our support, where our support really is. I mean, I would imagine to the extent that the United States and Israel have a desire for regime change in Iran, it is

for some version of the Shah again? No, no, no, I absolutely agree with you there. I meant sort of asking people of good conscience, maybe. Yeah. But no, absolutely. I mean, I wrote very kind of, I mean, to be honest, just the sheer brazenness, actually. I really just don't think, I do think the Israelis

and their understanding Iran is just untethered from reality. I think on the one hand, they're fed stuff maybe by the parts and elements within the sort of monarchist Iranian diaspora. And on the other hand, I mean maybe their own expertise. And also, I just think, you know, the fact of the matter is that they've sort of had this sense of impunity ongoing for many, many years. But obviously, it's intensified since sort of the genocide in Gaza has been carrying on unabated. So there is this kind of sense of imperviousness and invincibility. And within days, actually, of the strikes.

And the Jerusalem Post was outright calling from. the Balkanization of Iran, which immediately circulated on Iranian Twitter and social media. And I mean, even people who really do not like this regime, which are horrified. And they really have no trust or no faith whatsoever in either the Americans or the Israelis. And they really, and of course, they see what's happened in Libya and Syria, in Iraq, Afghanistan. And they understand that both, I think, the United States and the Israelis would prefer a really fragmented, shattered. sort of state without any real capacity and ability to function, then actually a strong functioning state.

And I think they understand that, and that's why we see the reactions across much of Iranian civil society that we have. I think it's hard for people to appreciate how incompetent in terms of making these assessments the Israelis can be and, and frankly, the U.S. can be. I mean, we saw this with Iraq. The people were convinced that Iraq was going to, you know, within months, blossom into some type of free market paradise and society would be and things would function. And we watched three or four or five or six years of total incompetence in the form of the coalition provisional authority.

maybe it was a little bit longer but it was shocking the level of assuredness that the so-called experts had and i think it's like you know as just citizens we presume like oh we may disagree with the idea of you know um the attacking and bombing another country but it but these people must know what they're talking about on some level even if we just agree what they're doing, but their assessments can be completely, totally blinkered. Well, just to speak to that, I mean, I'm not sure if you've seen the latest New York Times reporting, but it basically says that they don't even know where the stockpile of highly enriched uranium is. And there's plenty of actually evidence that, I mean, they're claiming that

Iran's centrifuges have all been destroyed, but I mean, I wouldn't bet on that. So on the one hand, what the Trump administration has done, has done really untold damage to the nuclear non-proliferation regime, like really damage beyond measure. They've shown it to be absolutely kind of hypocritical, have a double standard. I mean, Iran was, it was the most inspected place on the planet. And obviously, previously subjected itself to the JCPOA in 2015, as we know, the deal which Mr. Trump trashed. And then what we have is a scenario whereby two nuclear armed states, and, you know, Israel basically brought nuclear weapons into the region, attacked a country which, you know, all indications show was really, really, really eager to do a deal. And the reason is, I mean, Iran is not obviously

a democratic, a fully democratic society. I mean, it's not a democratic, it's a competitive authoritarian society. But there are really, there are societal levers. in order to exert pressure. And there was significant pressure on the government to improve the economic situation. There was a lot of, you know, a lot of discontent amongst the middle classes, the low middle classes, and just the brutality of the sanctions

over the last several years, as well as sort of economic mismanagement and so on, had really, you know, had really impoverished a huge number of people. It had really had a devastating. I've seen it amongst my own family. It's devastating. So there was significant pressure

on sort of the Iranian government to do a deal. And, you know, and basically the Peshkayam government, who was recently elected, sort of was very much elected on this platform of negotiating with the United States, was elected on this platform of reaching a diplomatic settlement, and was elected on this platform of getting sanctions relief. This is what he was elected to do. And he had broad support across the political spectrum. So, you know, Iran sincerely pursued this, and what happened?

They were attacked. I mean, they were attacked. And the thing is, I think I really also have to just center here. and we have like over 800 people being killed at this point I mean an uncle of a friend of mine was killed was murdered and you know just the shit

and it's just absolutely and it really has alienated beyond measure, beyond words countless Iranians actually who are really sympathetic actually putting pressure on their government to do a deal with the United States so that's kind of the situation a completely corroded the nuclear long provision regime and really a government

but also have people who are deeply now skeptical that they can trust a word coming out of the Trump administration's mouth, because what happens? They say, we're going to negotiate with you, and then they end up, you know, bombing you, launching surprise attacks, even the two-week deadline which Trump then said, oh, we'll give you two weeks, and then we'll make a decision. You know, obviously, Seymour Hersch published this piece saying the attack would happen over the weekend, and he actually was proven to be absolutely correct. So this is the situation we're within, and I really don't know how we're going to,

how they're going to break through the sort of the lack of trust, the complete distrustness, now exists how would do you have any say i mean i it seems to me that the ability of the united states to get into any negotiate in any context has been severely damaged uh because of this i mean severely and uh you know uh trump has has effectively said regardless whether it's like you know the the the the the uh the original uh obama a nuke deal or or or just even these negotiations, it's completely, there's no credibility. I just don't know how any government anywhere could enter into negotiations with the United States and not feel like they're putting domestic, you know, themselves at risk domestically

for looking like idiots and fools. What is your sense of why the United States did this? Like, we have the intel that seems to be unanimous. that there is that the the the iranians have not had a program since two thousand three before you answer actually the what your sense is the united states because i have you know who knows with donald trump at the end of the day but the uh the iranians have enriched uranium to 60 percent which is um far greater than you need for a civilian um uh of use still 30 percent less than you need to even begin to make a weapon that could deliver it anywhere, et cetera, et cetera. But what is your sense? What was that, that increase in enrichment? What was that about?

My sense is that that was a way of gaining leverage. Because the reality is, you know, it's a massively asymmetrical kind of negotiation. I mean, and if you think about it, Iran entered the JCPOA. it literally poured concrete into its heavy water reactor in Iraq, so it could never be actually used again. And there was extreme criticism, actually, within Iran, that you're basically destroying, like, actually, you know, real gains in our program,

and you're giving up real material things for these ethereal things called sanctions, which the United States can just impose at no cost whatsoever, you know, within, you know, very capriciously. So, I mean, there was a lot of criticism within Iran in this regard as well. So, I mean, so my sense is that this time they were saying, okay, you're going to play, you're going to, Trump's going to pull out in 2018.

The Biden administration, which has a lot to answer for for bringing us to this point, who basically kept Trump's, you know, quote-unquote maximum pressure. And I think we shouldn't really even use this euphemism. I think it's really, really actually dishonest. It's a form of economic warfare to really destroy, and hollow out a society and, yes, and create massacred discontent

so that that can then be weaponized. I mean, that's what it is. It's not, it's not, you know, maximum pressure is a euphemism. And we shouldn't, you know, millions of people, millions of people, lives have been destroyed by this. And I've seen it with my own eyes. It's just horrendous. So I think Iran was saying,

okay, you're going to do that. We're going to build up this stopper, and we're going to use it as leverage. I think, actually, the issue is the Iranian leadership probably underestimated the willingness of both Netanyahu, I mean, post-October 7th, basically to push all caution to the wind, and the United States basically to let any guardrails have been completely removed.

I mean, and that should have been really clear from what he did to Lebanon. When he was basically engaging in collective fire and killed, you know, in the excess of 3,000 people, basically carrying out outright sort of terrorist actions with this pager attack, which really was an act of state terrorism. It should have been, and obviously then killing Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah and basically destroying, you know, several apartment blocks in order to do that using a bunker-bust bomb. I mean, when that was permitted and the whole world

clapped, or most of the Western elites clapped, it should have been clear to Iran that basically there was no limits whatsoever. So I think probably Iran did make a miscalculation. They probably thought that they could do this and actually get a deal. And that's why they entered this negotiation. Because the reality of it is, I mean, if they did some, to go and actually weaponise, pursue a nuclear deterrent before this. That's a political decision, which means they would have to effectively stop all cooperation with the IAEA. And therefore, that would basically, the whole world would be alerted to that.

And then they would have to basically take the way to actually turn it into a device, meld it into the metal that was necessary to put it on a warhead, they get the delivery device, all these sorts of things. This is actually a complex and very difficult process that would take considerable time. If you actually look at other states that have pursued weaponization, They're not members of the NPT overwhelming. The only one is North Korea. But Pakistan wasn't, India wasn't, and neither was Israel, obviously.

So I think we have to take that into consideration. So all of this sort of scaremongering is just that, absolutely. And the reality why Iran didn't go down the route of a nuclear term, which they might actually be very much regretting now, because obviously they can compare the fate of Libya with that of North Korea, is because they didn't want to bear the huge amount of economic isolation and the heavy political costs that would come from. from that. And why is that? Because they would, they would receive significant pushback amongst the

Iranian population. There would be, you know, protests, or there would be riots, or there would be significant political discontent. So that's why they didn't take that decision. That discontent would probably theoretically be a little bit less in light of what's happened, and the idea that short of a nuclear weapon, we have no protection against these bombings. Where do you think this goes next. Yeah, that's a really difficult one. I mean, my sense before this news that you've just informed me regarding the strike on Al-Odei, possibly, I'm not sure.

Will the Trump administration sort of leave it at that and say this was a tit for tat? Has this been, in some sense, choreographed, even, you know. But I think actually my sense initially before this news was that they might actually hold off on this. They weren't going to play the cards of the straight of foremost. They weren't going to play. I mean, already we've seen sort of shipping insurance double. I mean, in a sense, and we actually, I did, someone did send me actually an update from Donald Trump talking about oil prices. It does seem he's getting a little bit nervous there, actually. So I don't think Iran was to play that card yet, which shows that they're actually, they don't feel

existentially threatened. And also have options. I mean, I still think, even though Hezbollah has been depleted, I think it is more than capable, actually, of entering into the fold. I And Srala in Yemen is more than capable of, again, even more forcefully entering to the fold, possibly even closing the Bab al-Mandab straight as well. These are all cards to play. But I think the main thing for the minute, they will be focusing particularly on Israel and actually ensuring that they've raised the cost sufficiently so that Benjamin Netanyahu does not actually try to normalize just bombing Iran any time he feels like it.

Skanda Sondar Sadegi Senior Lecturer in the Middle East at the University of York Thank you so much for your time today We'll link to that piece in Jacobin And And perhaps we will speak again soon

Hopefully This will be just a Tit-for-tat situation But I It's hard to imagine Yes Yeah my family is displaced Yeah, they're like, they're all displaced.

They've left Tehran, you know. All right, well, our thoughts with your family and, and hopefully. Thank you so much for having me. All right, I appreciate your time. All right, folks, we're going to take a quick break. We're a breaking format just a little bit today because of all the news. We have a big election in this city tomorrow. Really more consequential.

I think then one would imagine this mayoral election because of who Andrew Cuomo is and who Zoran Mamdani is and where the Democratic Party is nationally. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll be talking to Anthony Conwright, writing in the Nation magazine asking the question, will black Americans vote for a zone. Socialist. We'll be right back after this. Thank you. ...you-tosephi-tizant-tiz-d-jit-jit-j-j-j-j-dh-ch-de-ch-de-h-dh-de-h-h-h-a-h... I'm Yeah.

And Yeah. And Yeah. And Yeah. And I'm

I. And We're going to be able to be. back sam cedar on the majority report emma vigland out for the week on her honeymoon when all this news is happening uh joining us now anthony conwright writer uh freelance writer writing in the nation will black americans vote for a socialist uh anthony welcome to the program the there's a new poll out today from Emerson, taken over, I think just ending on Friday, with still two days of the early voting to take place, showing that Zoran Mamdani is within the margin of error in the first

ballot, and at 35 to 38, I believe it was, and is two or three points up in the eighth ballot, but it's ranked choice voting. But one thing has been clear, and both in this polling and in prior polling, that Andrew Como's biggest base of support is with African-American voters. Also, I should say, Asian voters and Latino voters, and in the boroughs of the Bronx and Staten Island,

which you wouldn't necessarily assume would be voting with each other. Give us your sense of, like, what is driving Cuomo support in the black community in New York? Right. So just for starters, to acknowledge, obviously,

talking about race can sometimes get a little weird and awkward and talking about people as a monolith can be a little problematic, but let's continue forward knowing that everything we say and ask is with the best of intention. And so with that being said, let's talk about black voters. You know, we're talking broad strokes.

I mean, you know, not all college educated people are voting for Zohan, Mondani, not all, not all, you know, Jews are voting in one way or another. But this is when we talk about electoral politics, a lot of times people get reduced down to, you know, one demographic if there's a consistency there. So, but with that said, right. So, okay, I think it's actually a part of sort of a larger project within establishment, Democratic Party politics in that if you can keep progressive leftist politicians away from black folks, well, all we will tend to know are the establishment candidates. So one of the things that Zoran was experiencing early on was name recognition, right? And so that really is going to impact black voters who tend to get their news from more establishment-type programs. And then if you kind of think about Zoran's politics, we've been kind of trained to believe that anything that is Democratic Socialists is bad and is sort of anti-black in a way. And unfortunately, like, those are all of the things that black voters have to kind of combat in this.

in this race to sort of vote within their interests, you know. But as soon as black folks hear about Varan and hear about his politics, they're on board. I was actually getting my hair cut last week on 116th in Malcolm X, and my barber was like, he knows I write until he was like, yo, man, you know, what do you think about this Zoran guy? I kind of like him. You know, what is like, I'm 65 years old. And he goes, well, I don't want to, you know, I can't really say anything out loud because, you know, I'll be looked at like I'm crazy. And I was like, no, shout it from the corner.

Like, we have to be, we have to expose folks in our community to ensure that, you know, we're voting within our best interests. How much of it is? I mean, we saw this in the context of Bernie Sanders in 2016, and particularly in 2020. And, you know, with South Carolina voters, I mean, James Clyburn came out, endorsed Biden. Clyburn has done the same thing with Cuomo in this instance. How much of the dynamic is that black people understand or have a sense of the stakes in an election? I mean, within the context of like a general election in the country, it seems to me the dynamic may be different than in New York City. But that like there is a concern that was articulated about Bernie Sanders that he can't

win like he this was even a dynamic this was even a dynamic with obama early in in 2000 i mean i want to say through the summer of 2007 that he can't win and um in a general election and therefore we have to make sure that we're putting up the the best candidate now i don't see how that would necessarily apply in new york where although rudy juliani's probably still in people's mind How much of it is it that versus the idea of a democratic socialist being seen as a white project? Okay. I think it's all interconnected. But when you actually like break down the reasoning, you can actually, if you're thinking something is more racist than the other, like imagine what it is like to tell a voting block.

Like you cannot have any sort of progressives of our leftist political aspiration. You have to be pragmatic and you just have to sort of suffer slowly. And I think that's crazy. There's nothing pragmatic about poverty. There's nothing pragmatic about any sort of suffering. And we tend to only apply that type of thinking when it comes to black folks. Like, you know, white people, if you look at Trump's voter base, they have allowed him to literally violate the Constitution. And no one was like, well, you know, he has to do so with some sort of.

pragmatism. He's been doing it full tilt. So I don't understand why all of a sudden when it comes to black people, it's like, oh, well, we are so pragmatic. We will take our suffering very, very slowly instead of having the audacity to have political aspirations that are outside the bounds of establishment party politics. I think it's like in, I think it's insane. I think that's more of a kind of like a narrative than it actually is like what, more so than it is about what black people need or

should aspire to politically. How much of this is a function of Barack Obama? Because, and I ask this because, in 2012, I had the Lake Glenn Ford on from the Black Agenda report.

And his argument to me at the time, which I think I mean, has obviously stuck with me for now for 12 years, was that Obama was the greater of two evils between him and Mitt Romney in the sense that Obama was undermining the long historical role of radicalism and socialism and socialism within. the black community and was um essentially short-circuiting it by uh being so so pragmatic and um uh what's your sense of that well i think i think it's i think that's true to uh an extent i i don't think one man can sort of outdo with like an unethical system they'll know matter who you put in there, like you're no one person's going to topple sort of the aspirations

of the empire. And so, and I think one of the things that we all sort of did that was not fair, the Barack Obama was sort of project our own hopes of what a black president would mean without sort of realizing that the last thing he could do as soon as he gets into office is actually sort of be a quote unquote black president if you know what i mean so you know he kind of in response to some of the stuff but this is the thing with obama you know response to what trump was doing he at somewhere said you know imagine if i had did some of that and it's like well i did i did imagine you do like you i wish you would have gone that far for the moral for the moral cause and i think that's what's so frustrating to kind of look at sort of establishment to

Democratic Party politics is that they've lost the ethical and moral calling to everything. It is a moral imperative to look at your neighbor, no matter what race they are, and say, you shouldn't die on the street. It's a moral imperative to say in the richest country in the world, people shouldn't be homeless. It's crazy. How can, in New York City, you know, Cuomo is like doing the whole, well, if we raise taxes, then millionaires and billionaires, oh my God, we might lose a few. I don't know what we'll do about, you know, one of the 123 billionaires that list New York City's their primary home.

And it's like, I don't, I don't care. I don't, I'm more concerned with protecting the, the moral imperative than the political one. And so fine, you might lose 10 billionaires, but you're losing hundreds and thousands

of black people who are displaced because they can't afford to live here, and white people too. And so I think what's, what's super, what's super, with what's going on, especially to watch some of the older black statesmen, is that they've completely lost the moral imperative that Zoron is fighting for and advocating for. Let me read to you, you, if you would, because this really stuck with me. If New York became a socialist economy, everything is free, Cuomo said, we tax the rich at an

exorbitant rate. The rich will move to Massachusetts. I remember when we used to call Massachusetts, Texas. I didn't, but that was New Jersey or Florida. And then you write, to be clear,

123 billionaires list New York City as their primary residence the most in the world. And New York City is home to 384,500 millionaires the most in the world.

Cuomo mourns the prospect of losing this class but does not grieve for the exodus of black families, black children, and black teenagers forced out of New York

city by the rising cost of living i think that really really puts things very well into perspective um uh what what is what from from your perspective i mean you had the opportunity to um you know talk directly to uh your your barber who at 65 in particular is in a cohort that um generally is more skeptical of non-establishment democratic politicians what what is needed to mobilize the black community i mean particularly in the context of a primary that's going to decide somebody that is more than likely i mean the republican party at rudy juliani was last uh in in bloomberg but that was almost two decades ago like I mean this it seems like New York City is not going to vote for a Republican

certainly not going to be Curtis Silva and Eras Lewa I can't remember how to say his name but what is your sense that needs to happen in these communities to change their voting perspective well we have to broaden the sort of the people that we present in front of voters as sort of the, I don't want to say like shepherds of black voters. But so like, for example, I am a super left black atheist. Like there aren't a lot of folks like me that are put in front of black audiences.

And I think that's like one of the things. So that way, you know, like people like black folks can see like, oh, it's actually not a white thing to say. wow, everybody in the country should have health care. And if we do think it's a white thing, we go like, that's probably, that says something about how we think about black politics. But, like, I think we kind of have to expand who folks are being exposed to.

But also, I think just as a general rule of them, is to remember to center ourselves in the moral imperative. I think, like, we really, really lost that. And part of that kind of happened once black folks became sort of enrolled in the Democratic Party politics, which is actually, which, you know, happened after Martin Luther King Jr. died. And so in order to have political standing and to have like a seat at the table, there are some things that you kind of are forced to let go of that are sort of moral principles. And so I think part of that contributed to this, but I think at some point, not only black

folks, but like as a community as a as a whole, you know, like on the Democratic side we have to like we we are we have the moral argument like no one should die on the street full stop nobody should be homeless that they do not have to be full stop like and i think just having um hold of that but moral clarity and presenting that and keeping that at the the center of the sort of politics i think would be the best thing do you think um and i'm just wondering like you know why Cuomo, what the appeal is. And I wonder if your sense is, is that in the black community, in New York City, there is any amount of jadedness that, I mean, that your barber is asking this question about Zoran this week. We're closer to the election. I wonder if, like,

a certain amount of because in black folk that I spoke to in the wake of the first Trump election, people are like, I'm not that surprised. I'm not, you know, like, there's a certain level of

jadedness that I wonder, you know, and this obviously is just anecdotal, but I wonder if, from your perspective, there

that jadedness causes engagement that might be a little bit later in the process. I mean very few people know that the primary takes place. I mean, and I think this is going to help Mondani to be honest. But

you know, we're not for Mamdani in this race. Most people I know would have no idea that there was a, like I feel like the last one barely anybody knew was even happening because people just don't pay attention to politics when it's 92 degrees out. Right.

Right. And so here's the thing. If you look at Trump, especially that first, you know, his first win, one of the things he's like, well, the system is rig. The tax system is game. Look at this war. Look at all. So he's kind of taking a critique of America that black people have had for such a long time. And then, like, using it, and then you have Democrats being like, what do you mean the system is rigged?

No way. So he kind of, like, made Democrats defend an unethical in system that is rigged, which appeals to white people because white people are poor too. So Democrats were like, instead of finding a way to build a multiracial coalition that says, hey, the system is rigged, they let Trump have all of that ground. And black people are, you know, like, obviously there was a small increase and whatnot with Blacksport for Trump. But I mean, like, what do you expect? If you're not, it's the best you can offer somebody is not Trump or, you know, I'm with her or this is, you know, such an existential crisis, but we're not going to actually have any sort of politics that addresses like a moral concern. What do you think is going to happen? And so, like, I think if Democrats would have been like, you know what, yeah, there is police brutality.

And white people, you know what, the police beat you and shoot you too. So we all need to get together to fight this. You know what? Rant is super high in New York. And it's disproportionately impacting black people. But you know what? There's a lot of poor white people in New York, too. And you know what the system is rigged against you.

It's also rigged against me. So let's get together and fight this thing. And so I think if you keep presenting a situation to a group of voters where it feels like nothing is going to change no matter who you vote for, of course you're going to feel jaded and displaced and sad and despondent. Like that's just a natural occurrence, but then unfortunately, you know, there aren't just a lot of black people in the United States in general. And so we sort of disproportionately are impacted by those things. But, like, if you don't give someone to hope for, you don't give people something to aspire to, what do you think is going to happen? And so we have, you know, Cuomo is going to black churches being like, oh, well, you know, we, you know, be idealistic, but you have to be realistic. And I think that just is not a message that you see from the conservative party.

They're not saying, well, we have to pragmatically use ice to round people up. They're like, you know, like, we'll get a few Mexicans here. We'll even get some white people. We'll just start picking people off the street without due process. Who cares? We're just going to do it until we get the desired results. And I think, like, that's the kind of energy we have to have on the opposite side of the coin. I'm not necessarily, you know, like, I don't care if they're a bunch of billionaires and millionaires who end up leaving the city.

Like, my sort of moral concern and ethical concern isn't with them. It's my concern is for the person who's living on the street around the corner from my, from my house. Like, I don't want that person to be displaced. I don't want, I don't, my concern is for people who, who can't afford to take the bus. Like, my concern is for lowering police contact with people who are on the bus. And you know, a good way to do that is if you have a universal bus transportation. It's like, it's, and so, like, I just think if you, if you present people, with sort of a moral north star.

And you say, I don't care what your race is. I don't care, you know, wherever you are, rural, urban, in a city. Like, in the richest country in the world, we shouldn't have people who are dying on the street. Like, I just think it's like, it's that simple. And I think we just sort of the party has to do a better job of making that the message, instead of like, you know, have the audacity of a little bit of hope. The irony, too, is that Cuomo talks about his concern about capital flight from New York State. In the meantime, he's lowering taxes on them.

So what's the point? Like, we're just, there's going to be some store on Madison Avenue that's going to close because people aren't buying, you know, fur sinks anymore, whatever it is. Right, right, you know. Anthony Conrite, we will put a link to your piece in the Nation magazine. Much appreciated. Oh, no, thank you for having me on again. Sorry for calling in so many times.

I was that one caller that called a week ago. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Glad to connect. All right, folks. We're going to head to the fun half. We should reiterate that there have been reports, and I think it has now been confirmed that Iran,

has attacked that U.S. base in Qatar with missiles. This is the Al UDD Air Base. This is where the Ford

headquarters of Centcom is located. It's the biggest base in the region. Matt Duss earlier in the program said that there was reason to believe that's where the Iranians would strike and it appears that he was correct

now as I mentioned earlier if you had Googled that the attack apparently took place 30 or 40 minutes ago if you if you had Googled it 30 or 40 minutes ago, you would see reports as early as like three to four to five hours earlier that an attack may be imminent on that base. So it's clear that Iran was giving a heads

up ostensibly to minimize U.S. casualties in an attempt to perhaps deescalate. Iran says the missile attack matched the number of U.S. bombs. So basically just saying this is a tit for tat. Look at how proportional we can be. It is

like this happened after Soleimani too. We are told that the Iranian regime and make no mistake. I have a real problem with religious fundamentalism. If you've been watching the show for any period of time, you would know this. I am not a supporter of the Iranian regime.

I'm not a supporter of many governments, to be honest with you. But to the extent that I am a supporter of any governments, Iran, the Iranian regime is not one of them. The ones that aren't doing wars. The story that I have been told since. 1979 was that the Iranians are rational they're madmen

that they they're complete they don't act react rationally this of course was also the story of Saddam and Gaddafi and every other person we ever bomped Noriega

I don't know the guy you know the guy in Granada they're all madmen crazy people oh yeah but Mossadegh

I mean I wasn't around I'm just going by what I literally what I remember hearing and it really appears that every time we attack Iran there is an attempt to deescalate which suggests to me

that they're not so crazy they realize that's a wild it's not going to work yes um decades of being the rational actor is all just to trick us exactly and it's driving us crazy this is the long this is the long con 35 years and then one day they just for 35 50 years 40 years 45 years oh Jesus all right um we're going to take a break head into the fun half you can support this program by becoming a member at join the majority report dot com when you do you not only get the free show free of commercials but you also get the fun half also don't forget just coffee dot co-op fair trade coffee hot chocolate use the coupon code a majority get 10% off uh you can buy the uh majority report blend i don't know what's going to happen to the w t f blend which is mark marron show once he goes off air my guess is uh it'll still sit there languishing i um i did want to mention though

in the conversation with uh anthony uh conwright that uh not only do i remember that interview with glen ford but the one joke of mark marrence i remember and i've remembered it for 16 years and i've heard a lot of his jokes uh maybe the other ones i remember just completely inappropriate to talk about but the one joke i do remember from the air america days was that um after barraq obama or in the in the lead up to the potential for baroque obama to get elected uh maran had a joke was um if baroque obama wins finally black people in this country will have an opportunity to be screwed over by one of their own and um it turned out to be fairly indicative

Barack Obama was basically you know and there was some good stuff. The Medicaid expansion and oh the Iranian nuclear oh well Matt what's happening on left reckoning yeah left reckoning we talked about Iran

again patron of conscience of office left reckoning and kind of how this whole anti-war right wing would basically be like the new coke and I think we're seeing it evaporate right in front of our eyes. All right, 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. Hold on for a second.

The majority report. Emma, welcome to the program. Hey. Fun pack. Matt. Who? Fun pack. What is up, everyone?

Fun pack. No, me, Keene. You did it. Fun pack. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Bradley, you want to say hello?

Sorry to disappoint. Everyone, I'm just a random person. It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Stop talking for a second. Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude?

But dude, you want to smoke this? Seven, eight. Yes. Hi, is he me? You're safe? Yes. Is this me? Is it me?

It is you. 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 just know what. Libertarians. They're so stupid, though. Common sense says, of course. Gobbled e-gook. We fucking nailed him. So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge met.

I'm positively clovery. I believe 96, I want to say. 857. 210. 35. 501. 1⁄2. 38.

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

You can call it satire. Sam goes to satire. On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we see you. All right, folks, folks. It's just the week being weeded out, obviously. Yeah, sundown guns out.

I don't know. But you should know. People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled folks. Wow. I love it. I do love that.

Look, got to jump. I got to be quick. I get a jump. I'm losing it. Two o'clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulaw? What is wrong with you?

Love you, bye. Love you. Bye-bye.