5/8/26: Trump Says Ceasefire Still On After US Iran Bombing, Platner Brutal Ad & MORE

23:14And I think it's part of why this issue of what's going to happen with their 60 % enriched uranium has become so important to the Iranians. You had the foreign ministry spokesperson of the Iranian government say, it's as sacred to us as our soil. That's not just a sort of rhetorical thing that Esmail Bagai was just sort of dropping off the cuff. What it's a reflection of is the fact that the Iranians now view this as very different than the 2015 JCPOA because they've been faced with an actual existential war that was waged by the United States. And so that's why I think you have real contentious debate about what this memorandum of understanding is going to look like.

23:59Iran does not want to be perceived by its domestic population to have ceded a millimeter when it comes to the issue of the enriched uranium because of this debate, because there is a view that it was maybe a mistake not to have actually created a nuclear bomb. So it's not just a matter of Iran is setting these red lines and they're doing it from a place of negotiating and later they're going to capitulate. I think that it's viewed as a very, very serious issue that if they were to give up on the front end of any negotiation, it would be widely perceived as having kind of bent the knee.

24:33Jeremy Scahill:On the other hand, if you think about, OK, well, what's the purpose of developing a nuclear weapon? The idea is to serve as a deterrent. You use the example of North Korea, which I think is quite apt. And you could use the counter examples of, say, Libya or even you could think of Ukraine in this circumstance after the dissolving of the Soviet Union. But in any case, I mean, they have established that they have another deterrent weapon, which is their control over the Strait of Hormuz. And actually, Kyle and I were talking to Ryan about this yesterday. and Ryan made the point, you know, in some ways it's actually more effective because you can actually use it.

25:03Jeremy Scahill:There isn't the same taboo around it. Whereas with nuclear weapons, at least, thank God for now, there continues to be a taboo around the actual use. So is that a view within Iran that in effect, maybe we don't need the nuclear weapons as much because we have this other very significant, consequential and clearly effective deterrent at our disposal? Yes, but I still think that the nuclear weapon debate is a very, very serious one. But certainly the Iranians recognize that they have an incredibly potent weapon that they can deploy using very low risk asymmetric tactics. I mean, Trump is fond of saying that their navy is just sitting at the bottom of the sea.

25:47That's true in terms of the big vessels that they had, etc. But that's not how they were able to create the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. They did it with very, very small firepower and tiny, you know, fast boats and political will. And that's why you see right now a scramble among Gulf countries and others to try to find alternate routes. But a lot of those alternate routes also would either go across massive land areas or they would necessitate the Red Sea. And in the Red Sea, you have Ansar Allah in Yemen, which also has engaged in its own sorts of blockades. I mean, the other day an Iranian analyst said to Ryan and I, you know, you'll know Iran is really escalating when the Red Sea also gets closed.

26:28And that hasn't happened at this point. But at the same time, Crystal, I think that will happen. I think other countries are going to realize that there's so much power over the global energy economy concentrated in this small strip of territory controlled by Iran that they have to find alternatives. I think that's going to happen. Iran also is building up its own alternative infrastructure, and it in recent weeks has signed a number of deals for third country transit routes over land. You know, Iran has borders, either maritime or land, with roughly a dozen other countries, and seven of those are land borders.

27:05And so, you know, the Iranians are looking at, for instance, at Pakistan. Iran views part of its economic future as becoming a central trade hub, you know, in Asia that also services Europe. So, yes, I think that Iran has a very powerful weapon that for some time to come will remain in their hands in a very clear and definitive way. The other thing is, remember Trump used to talk about all the ballistic missiles, the ballistic missiles. They don't talk about that anymore. And I think Iran is going to develop much more sophisticated ballistic missiles, probably with a longer range. Jeremy, how do you think Israel plays into these ongoing negotiations?

27:42I mean, I think it's pretty clear that throughout the entirety of the ceasefire, they probably would have preferred the U.S. to go back to a full-blown kinetic war with Iran. They failed to achieve pretty much all of their core objectives going into this war. Like, do they have real influence over whether or not a deal is even possible? What degree do you think they could potentially impact this going forward? You know, I think the Israelis were very happy at what happened. I think they were a huge part of it. I think they presented cooked intelligence to the White House, among other things. There's political pressure, et cetera.

28:16But I also think that they intentionally contaminated the intelligence pipeline to Trump. And, you know, that's that's not on the Israelis. That's that's in their interest to do it. That's on U.S. intelligence professionals. It's also what happens when you bring in Fox News hosts instead of actual intelligence professionals to be running the show. I mean, look, look, I mean, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has been kept outside of the loop on Iran, in part because she's expressed skepticism about some of these core issues in the past. There's no question that Israel has had an enormous influence over all of this.

28:49But I don't think that Israel necessarily thinks it's such a bad thing if this ends under Trump in this way, because I think what the Israelis realize is that Iran has stayability and it's to its advantage when it's in a military confrontation with the United States. And I think that the next phase of this is that the Israelis are going to look at how to really ratchet up the economic desperation inside of Iran. I think they do want to bring down the government. I think that they believe that the best way to do that is to just utterly destroy the fabric of the Iranian state economically. So while there may be some short-term deals or agreements that the Israelis may not like, I still think they feel like what they're going to get out of this is, in the long run, an attempt to further weaken and bring down Iran.

29:36I think they're going to fail at that, but that's what I think they're in part calculating. And also, they want to continue their war in Lebanon. They're threatening to resume the genocidal operations in the 33 % of Gaza that is not under occupation right now. They're weaponizing the Board of Peace to basically say that there isn't really going to be a ceasefire anymore in Gaza until the Palestinians surrender and say we have no right to armed resistance against occupation anymore. So I don't think that this is entirely bad at all for the Israelis, even if a deal is signed. In fact, I think Israel would be in trouble if this war resumed in a very serious way because I think the Iranians would massively attack them with a replenished supply of ballistic missiles.

30:17Yeah, I was just going to say the Mark Levin crew immediately on what late Tuesday into early Wednesday was saying absolutely no to that framework that had emerged about potentially unfreezing Iranian assets and then lifting sanctions. But I guess, Jeremy, that could mean that's just Mark Levin, I guess, at the end of the day. That's not Netanyahu himself.

30:43Jeremy Scahill:Hugh Hewitt was upset, too. Yeah, I get that. And I understand why. What I'm saying, though, is that we're dealing with Donald Trump. We're not dealing with like with Barack Obama constitutional law scholar. And I don't mean to, you know, I've spent many years criticizing Barack Obama. I guess what I'm saying, though, is that no one can trust an agreement that Trump claims he's making. And, you know, the Iranians were supposed to have certain funds unfrozen. And Joe Biden was the one during his presidency after October 7th that blocked that. It's very easy for them to reverse almost any concessions they would make to the Iranians.

31:20And Iran is well aware of that. So while I understand why those guys have all taken out that position because they want the total maximalist pummeling destroy murder Iran position, I think the Israelis are far more sophisticated than those yahus. And the Israelis recognize that whatever Trump says, and that's evidenced by the Gaza deal, it doesn't really mean anything as long as the winks and nods are happening behind the scenes. And I would bet there's some very heavy winking and nodding going on between Trump and Israel on this matter.

31:49Jeremy Scahill:The last thing I wanted to dig in a little more with you, Jeremy, you mentioned this previously, but we just had this reporting about this CIA analysis delivered to policymakers that says Iran can survive the U.S. naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship, finding that contradicts those hailing an imminent collapse, predominantly, as you were talking about, the, you know, the Israeli think tank, the Zionist think tank that has been pushing these sorts of analyses. U.S. intel also indicates Iran retains about 75 percent of its pre-war inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its pre-war stockpiles of missiles per U.S.

32:28Jeremy Scahill:official regime has also been able to recover underground storage facilities and repair damaged missiles. This week, Trump painted a more dire picture of Iran's situation, saying their economy is crashing, their currency is worthless, and their missiles are mostly decimated. So, you know, this is, again, our own intelligence agencies, which are probably still too optimistic about how imminent Iran's collapse was. But we were being pushed these narratives. Other oil wells are going to explode in 14 days, you know, 14 days to stop Iran. They're just going to completely collapse here imminently. And that is does not appear to be remotely the case.

33:04Jeremy Scahill:You know, it's three to four months of the Strait of Hormuz being closed. There are going to be economies collapsing. Certainly ours will be one of them. But, you know, the whole global economic order is going to not be able to make it through that period of time, you know, and the level of supply shock that would entail. I mean, remember, Crystal, that when the 1979 Islamic Revolution happened soon after the Ayatollah came to power, the U.S. supported Iraq in launching a war against Iran that went on for eight years. And, you know, so Iranians, especially the generation of leaders in Iran right now who grew up fighting that war and living through that war throughout the 1980s, understood what hardship meant, understood what supply shortages meant, understood what an economy that was in a state of deterioration looked like.

33:57I mean, that's why they talk about a resistance economy. And so, you know, we're talking about a period here of weeks and then using these terms like they're strangling the Iranian economy. I think maybe even three to four months is conservative. You know, Iran is a massive country of 93 million people. It's an agricultural society. It exports goods. You know, the ways in which the Iranian economy is suffering right now has a lot to do with just cash flow and liquidity. And that can certainly have an impact. And then when you have inflation off the charts, the reason that the protests started in early January was on economic matters.

34:37You know, in American terms, we would say it was small business owners that started saying, like, we can't survive, you know, in this economy where we have the punishing American sanctions. and we have financial mismanagement on the part of our authorities. And that's what people were saying openly. And Ayatollah Ali Khamenei actually said that the people need to be listened to on this. When Moshe Abba Khamenei was named as the supreme leader, he told a story where he had talked about riding sort of in disguise in taxis and listening to ordinary Iranians in the way that they spoke about the country and saying that he considers their voices worth more than opinion polls.

35:13These are interesting statements that are made by the supreme leadership of Iran, who are also revered in the Shia Islamic community around the world. And so I guess the point that I'm making here is that if you look at the past 47 years of history, which Trump and Rubio are frequently invoking, there's a part of it that actually Americans should understand, which is that if there's any country in the world that knows how to survive under sort of the threat of American or Israeli attack, under really punishing sanctions, and has to deal with how do you feed the people and maintain power, your grip on power, in these kinds of intense circumstances, It's Iran.

35:53It's the Islamic Republic of Iran. So, you know, our reporting consistently has shown that the Iranians are not in a state of panic. And they were saying even before this, you know, very important Washington Post piece came out, everything that was in that post piece, we can survive for months. They're exaggerating the extent of the damage to our ballistic missiles. And they're going to continue to find out if they keep attacking us because every time they say we're decimated, we turn around and strike again. And sometimes we do it even harder.

36:19Jeremy Scahill:Jeremy Scahill, DropSite News Always great to have your insights Just truly invaluable, thank you so much First time on a Friday, really nice to be with you guys I hope not the last Yeah, Friday cruise, fun Have a good weekend everybody Thanks, you too Thanks Jeremy

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38:36Jeremy Scahill:All right, so we have a few interesting developments in what is now the Plattner versus Susan Collins Susan's crucial main Senate race. Mac, if you want to pull up, Graham out with his first ad directly attacking Susan Collins. And I mean, I think it's pretty devastating in my opinion. Yeah, let's go ahead and take a listen. Susan Collins, charade is over. We don't care that you pretend to be remorseful at the start of a new forever war that you chose to let happen. We don't care that you are concerned while we go broke. As you sell us out to the president and to the Epstein class who are engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling class in this nation's history.

39:21Symbolic opposition doesn't reopen hospital. Weak condemnations don't bring back Roe v. Wade. And selling out the same working class voters who've delivered mandate for change after mandate for change is not forgivable. A performative politics that enables the destruction of our way of life is disqualified. As a United States senator, I am running because it is time for change. I'm Graham Plattner and I approve this message. Absolutely brutal. Somebody made the point on Twitter, and I think it's true, that the way that he pronounces Susan Collins in that voice might give him a five point bump just by itself.

40:04Jeremy Scahill:I mean, the voice is pretty incredible. It's a booming announcer voice. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious, Emily, from your perspective, because obviously I'm, you know, going to be biased here. To me, I'm like, inject that right into my veins. But I mean, do you think that that will be effective in Maine, a state where, you know, Susan Collins has defied the odds before? And she clearly is a small state where she has like a direct connection to voters, which has allowed them, even as the state has become more blue, to continue returning her to office. It's a really good question because it's going to be like retail politics versus retail politics in this case.

40:40And I think Plattner has to be careful. This is a mistake. I don't know if you guys would agree with this, but I think this is a mistake we saw in the Gideon campaign where it looked really flashy and like it was backed by a lot of national dem money. And certainly that's the case in literally any big race when you have the Senate in question. But you don't want to necessarily lean into that when your opponent's strength is being a great retail politician who is familiar, who is absolutely not flashy. And that's where I think Plattner is an interesting foil for Susan Collins, because if you're looking at those ads, I mean, he's going around in his Dropkick Murphy sweatshirt.

41:20And his last line there was, it's time for change. That is also very interesting because we've seen politicians make this argument before with great success. It's a matter of whether or not voters believe that you represent that change and if they believe that the change is worth the risk of getting rid of the status quo. And so that means you have to be pretty tired of the status quo. And he's leaning into like this. The other thing like in that ad, he leans into abortion and he leans into war. He leans into these issues that establishment Democrats feel like are left really left coded. But it's like I actually think that's smart because it's the way that you motivate the base to turn out, which has we've seen in some of these special elections, been very, very motivated in primaries.

42:14Democratic voters are very, very motivated this cycle. That's how Plattner, in a state that has some purple tendencies like Maine, is able to get people, if the ad is a proxy for what we're going to see rhetorically on his campaign, leaning into some of those issues is actually pretty smart, I think. And also because he's bundling into this whole thing about the status quo. And that, I do think, is a pretty powerful argument. I think to your point on him hitting that change note at the end of the ad, I think what he's trying to do is tap into because and I saw this with this other video that he recently released where he sat down with, I think it was a three time Trump voter.

42:51And I think he's trying to tap into the frustration that a lot of Trump voters who are sort of turning away from him right now feel that Trump was going to be the guy. Epstein. That's why he puts Epstein in it. Epstein class thing is a note on that as well. But this feeling that the system is completely broken, the status quo isn't working for anybody. You know, my life is getting progressively worse, my kids are going to do worse than I did, etc. And people felt like Trump might be that change candidate. And so they gave him a couple of chances and things still aren't feeling better for them.

43:21And so he's trying to sort of hit that note of, I'm going to be the guy to genuinely provide real material, tangible changes for working class people.

43:31Jeremy Scahill:Well, and also, you know, directly in conjunction with with Susan Collins, Graham really just needs Democrats to not ticket split and vote for Democrats on other, you know, in other races. And then Susan Collins, because they like the bipartisanship, blah, blah, blah. And so what he's also saying is like, all right, we're sick of this game of pretending like she's different when she's just the same old, same old helping Trump. I don't know if you hear my dog is like dreaming right now in the background and making those little dream barks. Anyway, you know, really pro Susan Collins. Yeah, she's trying to weigh in here.

44:06Jeremy Scahill:But in any case, you know, the idea that Susan Collins is there supporting Trump, supporting the Epstein class, that she's really just like the other Republicans. That's going to be central for him. And I think it's a message that based on what I'm seeing from the shift in Democratic voters, I think it's a message that lands this cycle better than it ever would have landed in the past. And my evidence for that is not only the races in Virginia where you had even the guy who was running for attorney general who would like threatened to murder his opponent or whatever, even he wins. But you also have the redistricting that passes in the state.

44:44Jeremy Scahill:This very hardball, listen, we're just going to erase these districts that Republicans were able to win in the past. And very much a shift away from the previous Democratic Party era where they said, oh, let's have a redistricting commission. Let's make it all fair. Now it's no, we are going to play the same game. We're going to go in and we're going to be hardball. We're going to be hardcore partisan, just like the Republicans are. And so that makes the landscape much more difficult for Susan Collins. I mean, frankly, I don't think she really has a prayer. I think this race is going to be impossible for her to win, given the national climate, given where the Democratic base is, and given what an effective candidate Graham Plattner truly has proven to be.

45:21Jeremy Scahill:Did you guys see that the Bulwark guys, Jonathan V. Lass, JBL, was making the case that Graham Plattner may be our next president? I mean, that's quite stunning because, first of all, he's not even ever been elected to anything. He's still in this competitive Senate race. Second of all, obviously, there's all the Reddit convo and the tattoo and all of that sort of stuff. You know, 30 just be coming into office, et cetera. But I think that's a testament to how compelling of a how compelling he is in his ideological positioning, how clear throated he is in what he believes and his willingness to fight for it.

45:59Jeremy Scahill:What the Democratic base is looking for right now. And also, you know, frankly, a lack of a lot of other talent on the Democratic bench. So, you know, I think the fact that you have the Bulwark guys who are former Republicans being like, yeah, maybe the standard. Yeah, that's right. Maybe this is the guy. Now, they will say quickly say, like, we're not arguing for him. We're just saying we're doing the analysis. But I thought it was pretty wild and very noteworthy to see them making the case because he is such a sort of compelling figure specifically for the Democratic base that I also think does have significant crossover support if you if you look at the polling that we've seen so far.

46:41Well, he's just a perfect candidate for the moment. And I do want to say, and we've talked about this a couple of times, Susan Collins was able to handle Sarah Gideon despite a lot of people seeing glimmers of hope in Sarah Gideon when we were at the same stage of that race. And it's because Collins has, for whatever reason, a really smart political operation where you're already seeing this. She's been saying she's not taking things for granted and she's been very judicious in what she said and what she hasn't said, how she's talked about things, how she hasn't talked about things. She hasn't gone all in on the Nazi attacks like Republicans elsewhere are already doing.

47:19You saw like literally the first press release from the RNC invoked Nazi stuff against Graham Plattner after Janet Mills dropped out of the race. And so Collins hasn't jumped on that bandwagon yet. And I think it reflects her judiciousness, her her her approach to these is these, I guess, these culture war questions can be reserved and smart in a different way than we see Republicans in the rest of the country. and she was able to pull ahead pretty significantly at the end of that race in 2020. But he's a really great candidate for this moment. And I said this on Megan's show this week. Did you guys see him with Sirota?

47:56Sirota sat down with Plattner in this just like super casual conversation. And I thought this was a huge, interesting moment where he asks Plattner about whether he would go on Tucker. And Graham, they're just sitting there like two guys just sitting having a normal conversation. He was like, you know, to be honest, I'm kind of torn on that. It's like this is a new era because politicians used to come into those conversations wearing makeup and ready to trot out a talking point line about, well, you know, we're having internal conversations that's like perfectly scripted, meant to seem natural.

48:33He's literally just bringing people in on his stream of consciousness thought process. And that's what people want to see right now. It's not an act. He literally was talking through why he's going back and forth on that question. And that is what I think a lot of people don't get about the new media atmosphere. It's not just about filming your videos on your iPhone, even though it's still scripted. You have to actually have the kind of unscripted substance to go with it. And he is a very, very strong candidate for that. So I feel like this is old politics versus new politics in as much as it's old ideology versus new ideology, too.

49:08Jeremy Scahill:The other problem for Susan Collins and Mac, you can pull up the the I'm running video that caught a lot of attention of many people. But Ken Klippenstein as one of them is, look, she she actually is on the younger side for the Senate. She is the only the 28th oldest senator, which is crazy. Completely insane. She's 13 years younger than Nancy Pelosi. She's 20 years younger than Chug Grassley. What is she? She's like 73 or something. Spring chicken for, you know, in Senate terms. But she's not, you know, she shows visible signs of age. One of those is a quite significant tremor that she's had for some time.

49:44Jeremy Scahill:And so people watched this launch video of hers were like, this is not a great look. Let's go ahead and take a look at this.

49:58Jeremy Scahill:this is perfect for 2026 because i'm running so you can see for those just listening she like pulls out sneakers from a box and her hand is visibly shaking and her head is visibly shaking and um you know this is not to attack people who have medical conditions etc she had never revealed why she had these very noteworthy tremors, which she's had for a long time, have gotten worse over time. And I also think people are more sensitive to now because we had Biden, whose brain melted before all of our eyes and was like decaying in office. And we're watching the same thing play out now with Trump, where a majority of Americans are going, this guy is not mentally or physically fit to be our president.

50:43Jeremy Scahill:He is an old man and seems like he's completely out of it, fallen asleep in press conferences, et cetera. So I think there's a heightened sensitivity to, you know, candidates. And I think there's a problem for Janet Mills, too, by the way, as part of why she was so defeated in the race. She had to drop out before Election Day. There is more sensitivity among the public to reelecting people who are old. Yeah. And especially people who don't want to talk about. Right. Like with Biden, it was always we're fine. We're fine. And so I think that's probably why Collins very early after Kenny Clips orchestrated a social media tornado.

51:22A mob.

51:23Jeremy Scahill:He effectively very effectively bullied her into releasing what it actually was. everybody's been wondering it for years. I mean, I don't know, like, I can't say whether it seems like it's gotten worse or not, but I think everybody's always, at least in like right circles, everybody's always been like, what is that? And she just pretty quickly into this race came out and had an explanation, whether that explains it or not, whether people are satisfied with it or not, I don't know. But I do think, Crystal, it underlines the point that you were making, which is it's not even just, I think people are sensitive to age, but they're doubly sensitive if it feels like you're covering something up because of what happened with with Biden.

52:02Jeremy Scahill:Yeah. All right, guys. Well, I've got to jump. I don't know if you guys want to do a couple more topics, but I've got to run. I've got an appointment I got to get to. So thank you. I enjoyed it as always. See ya. See ya. Apple Vacations semi-annual sale is here and it's the perfect time to plan your next beach getaway. Enjoy up to$250 off international and Hawaii vacations, up to$150 off domestic trips and hotel savings up to 70 % off. With instant savings of$300,$500, or even$700, your escape has never been more rewarding. Book by May 28th at applevacations.com or contact your local travel advisor.

52:45And now, another appliance triumph from your friends at Grand Appliance. Meet Chad. With the laundry piled high, Chad's washer died days before a two-week vacation with his family of five. But Chad didn't panic. I just called Grand Appliance. They recommended a large-capacity Samsung option with a super-speed wash mode that washed everything in no time. Best of all, it was in stock, and they delivered it next day. Another crisis averted by Grand Appliance. Shop grandappliance.com to learn more. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI.

53:29It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20 % year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S &P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. generated assets are like etfs with infinite possibilities completely customizable and based on your thesis not someone else's go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped one percent bonus when you transfer your portfolio that's public.com slash podcast paid for by public investing brokerage services by open to the public investing inc member finra and sipc advisory services by public advisors llc sec registered advisor generated assets is an interactive analysis tool output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures Welcome, everybody, to our fabulous AMA portion for our lovely and beautiful premium subscribers out there.

54:25It's just going to be me and Emily for today. Crystal had to run, but we're going to do our best to answer some of these questions out there. Should I throw the first one up here on the screen? Let's do it. I offered to answer them on Crystal's behalf. Well, yeah, we can throw something in there if we want, if we know what she has to say. Okay, so this first one here is from David Say, who says, I am not a fan of nuclear proliferation, but if Iran had some nuclear bombs, wouldn't we all be better off right now? We would be spared all this death and destruction. What do you think about that, Emily?

55:00I mean, it's like the central question about nuclear proliferation. And I guess I just I don't know. And that's part of what we've become so numb to with nuclear proliferation is the uncertainty in a nuclear world, right? It's one thing if you have uncertainty in a world where nuclear weapons aren't on the table. I think there's a really good case to be made for that premium subscribers point. But I just I genuinely don't know. I mean, we could have seen like we make our judgments based off of what feels like a very confident 80 years of nuclear proliferation where we've made it through without a crisis.

55:43But this technology is literally older, is literally younger than some people on this earth. Like this is something that has developed over the span of one human life, one generation, basically. And so I'm not confident that just because we've seen limited nuclear conflict in the first 80 years of its existence between— Well, only one nuclear conflict. It was us, but yeah. Right, but that's what people say. Well, it limited. It limited it going forward. And that—I just think we're very confident in what's happened over a short period of time. North Korea could act at literally any moment in a way that just proves— Israel could act.

56:23Yes, and in a way that disproves all of what we think has been proved by the recent decades of nuclear history. So I don't know. What do you think about that, Mac? Yeah, I mean, I think generally I'm against nuclear proliferation. I think that we should be trying to drastically scale down the amount of nuclear weapons that we have around the world, like as a global community kind of thing. I mean, I can see kind of the argument for, you know, maybe the U.S. would be less likely or less aggressive in trying to do, let's say, like a future war with China, knowing that they have nuclear weapons. That's, you know, a conventional war.

56:58Maybe that would lead to millions and millions of people dying. I don't know if that's going to stop us from, you know, trying to do that at all. But, yeah, I mean, in a general sense, I'm against nuclear proliferation. But if the specific question is about Iran, I don't think as many in the U.S. government and the Israeli government would claim that the Iranians are suicidal and that if they got their hands on a nuke, they would instantly try to blow up Israel or blow up the region. And, you know, obviously that would result in the destruction of their country as well. I think they're relatively rational actors and they would want it for, you know, self-preservation purposes and for a deterrent purpose.

57:34I think, you know, if maybe we can cut a deal, let's do this. Let's say Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon and Israel has to give up their nuclear weapons as well. I think that's a fair tradeoff that we can meet in the middle on. There you go. I'm a total hippie on this. I totally believe in nuclear disarmament across the board. I'm with you on that. It's so unpredictable. We're so confident about how this has gone. But I mean, we're fighting a proxy war. We're basically fighting for Ukraine. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So that's. Well, it's also like, it's not as if like threats aren't lobbed out all the time.

58:10I mean, you know, we've had Trump sort of like in some ways vaguely and in other ways not so vaguely hint that he would deploy a nuclear weapon. You know, we've had sort of indications roughly from like the Russians, you know, Israelis I've seen in the past sort of like float things out as like a wink and a nod. So it's not as if like the threats aren't there. So terrifying stuff. But next question that we have here, this one is specifically for you, Emily. Comments on Ryan and Emily appearing in one of the Iranian Lego videos. I know that that was a great honor for both of you. I think if you look at the actual clip, at least that I saw, they didn't really get you accurately portrayed, right?

58:52They had you with like dark brown hair. And I don't know if the outfit was on par. But how did you feel being being in one of those Iranian masterpieces? That was a bit surreal. It's not clear how close the relationship is with the government. Ryan did a great interview with them over at DropSite asking some of those questions. And, yeah, I wasn't really in. I was kind of like on the side. It was Ryan was the star. Let's be clear. It was symbolically you, though. Yes. Right. Now, if Ryan were here, I would probably disagree with him on. his proliferation of the Lego videos. It was pretty wild to see Ryan's, like it was so specifically Ryan.

59:39You know what I mean? They did a really good job. They did a good job with Ryan. And to see that be picked up on, it's such a weird new media moment where they're very, very online and they kind of understand And where the like American left is better than like Hakeem Jeffries probably. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, probably for sure. You know, I think the videos are interesting. Some of them are kind of cringe a little bit where it's, you know, some of the rap videos where it's like, I get the notes that you guys are hitting here and I agree with a lot of them. But it's also, you know, whatever. It's a little bit cringe sometimes.

1:00:17But I'm curious, what do you think about, because from my perspective, the U.S. This is just getting completely, and maybe this is just the social media ecosystem that I'm in that feeds me this kind of stuff. But it just seems like we're getting clobbered over the head in the narrative war or in the meme war, if you will. Everything that I see from Pete Hegseth or what the White House account is tweeting, it's all just so cringe and sort of over-the-top nationalism and whatever else. And the Iranians are sort of like jester maxing, to use a term there, and sort of like dancing around us. They have a huge advantage in the meme war, which is basically that they're the underdog.

1:01:02And so if you're taking yourself really seriously as the United States, like we're just talking purely in the meme war and in this conversation about like who is out mocking the other. And if you're the United States and you're kind of peacocking on social media, it's super easy then for the lesser power to poke at you again, just like in terms of propaganda. So they have a built in advantage that they've definitely maximized in some of those videos. The Epstein stuff, I think, has been pretty smart from them. And what was it? It was Rogan. Was it Rogan or Schultz? Both of them have said a version of this, I think, where they've been like, the right wing social media stuff is so lame.

1:01:49Like, they're so lame. And it's it's because I think the it was kind of the opposite of Biden and Kamala, where Trump was seen as a bit of an underdog in 2024, like that he was making his comeback. He had all the lawfare, tried to lock him up. And that gave right wing memers an advantage because they were the ones that was like that were poking at the current power. And so they came in with so much momentum culturally in January 2025 that they still haven't realized they lost a lot of momentum. So it comes across as like very, very cringy. I think it's also, you know, it's hard to win sort of the meme war, the propaganda battle when you're failing and kind of humiliating yourself in the actual literal war relative to like, you know, Trump seemingly completely delusional on the current state of the war.

1:02:42You know, we just covered earlier today, he's like 50 % off on the estimations of Iran's missile capacity that they have right now. They're still in control of the Strait of Hormuz. Like, even though we are the dominant power, we're sort of getting bullied around in some ways. And so it's hard to win that propaganda battle when the Iranians are still in a position of control and strength and can sort of troll us in the middle of that. Especially when Trump is kind of the taco stuff, right? Like the taco stuff is very it gives them an advantage in the meme war because he's blustering intentionally.

1:03:20Literally, he writes about this in The Art of the Deal, doing business transactions and negotiations. he's intentionally blustering. And then it gives them an ability to do, okay, before and after. Here's what he said, expectations versus reality. And that's, of course, going to be powerful when you're just like scrappy memers. All right, we got this next one here. Breaking points. What is your favorite way to decompress from the news or a bad day? Hot tea, yoga, toke? What is that? Oh, toke. Toke, yeah. Take it, okay. Yeah, that's your. answer. Not me, not me. That's a Sagar exclusive thing. Yeah, you're right.

1:04:02Someone asked this yesterday. I do an episode of my show every Friday where it's kind of like AMA the whole time. And someone asked the same question. And I was thinking about it because I don't usually, I haven't, I haven't thought about this. And my answer is that like, you don't. It's just, you kind of can't Yeah. It's so 24 hours. It is. And like, there's almost no point, right? Like we have to learn to live with this level of, I think it's just totally a post-nuclear thing to bring it back to nuclear conflict because there's constant stress. They're basically when you have nuclear powers, there are no borders and you just can't become numb to that level of constant threat.

1:04:45Like, obviously, you have to have we have to be mentally healthy and the like, you know, you don't want to be ill. But at the same time, I don't really try to decompress, to be honest. I feel like you kind of have to always be on Mac. I don't know what you think about that. But if you're not, I mean, it's important to always be on and then to kind of learn to live with that. And rather than decompressing, I was thinking about this because I was like, I used to watch a bunch of reality TV. I do that less now, not intentionally, just because I'd rather be like honestly watching a documentary or reading something because I it's that sounds like kind of annoying.

1:05:24But at the same time, it's like there's so much going on right now that if you aren't. It's easy to fall behind. Yeah. And if you aren't leaning in, yeah, it's easy to fall behind. Well, I'm slightly less disciplined than you, I think. I think my decompression is going to the gym. I hit the gym every day. That helps just to like center your mind or keep your body moving or whatever else. And then watching anime, that's a decompression thing for me. But to your point, I think that it almost like you kind of have to have, I don't know if it's like an understanding or acceptance of it, but maybe it's just like something a little bit wrong in people's brains who are obsessed with politics.

1:06:04Because I know so many people in my life that if you talk for even like 20 minutes about what's currently going on in the world, they're going to be overwhelmed and they're going to be depressed or they're not going to want to talk about it. And, you know, even people who watch this show, like you're already in like the top 10 % or, you know, even smaller of people who consume the news. Like you're an outlier relative to the general population. A lot of people just, it's too much. And that's, you know, to some extent acceptable. But it's also like we do have to live in the reality that we're facing right now.

1:06:34And if we're not paying attention, if we're not staying informed, then it's only going to get worse. It's not going to get better magically by itself. Well, and Mac, you've seen this just like in your own family, but there's no beat reporters now. And so that for me is partially what's very overwhelming. And it's why like, yeah, I'm still I'm not going to listen. I'm not going to miss an episode of the Salt Lake City Housewives. But at the same time, if you are doing a show like Breaking Points, you are a generalist. And that means you should be really deep on Israel. It means you should be really deep on Mexico.

1:07:07It means you should be really deep on Canada. that means you should be really deep on trade policy, healthcare policy. And so from my perspective, it's like, if you're not spending your time doing that, then you're not as good as you could be. And so one of the things I like doing, I like taking like really long bike rides and I'll just pop on like a deep dive audio book or podcast while I do that. But to your point, it's like, there is something about having a, like what you were saying with the gym about having your like the physical resistance training or that that pressure coupled with thinking about some of those things that can be actually like weirdly peaceful.

1:07:48Yeah. There you go. One more thing here that we got. This is specifically for you again, Emily. Although I could maybe chime in on this. Emily slash Ryan, what was your favorite part of the Scott Jennings debate? Anything surprise either of you about Scott's points or the way that the crowd was on Ryan's side about Israel? Mac, I'm actually really curious for your take on this. I'll just quickly say I was surprised to hear Scott refer to America as a nation of ideas. That's like a real, like that's seen on the right as like a very cringe centrist thing to say and a red flag anytime you hear a politician talk like that.

1:08:27And not that Scott's a politician, although he has been rumored to potentially be looking at political office. All that is to say - He's got to get through Adam Mockler first. That's right. What did he say? What did he say? Put your fucking hand out. Get your finger out of my face. No, he dropped an F-bomb. Did he say? Oh, he said, get your fucking hand out of my face? Yeah, he said something like that. And it was shortly after the debate. So who knows if Ryan was under his skin more than Adam Mockler. He's still thinking about it, yeah. Yeah, he still had that. But I was surprised to hear him say that.

1:08:55And I still it's true that that event was organized under the auspices of a conservative group. I don't know that the argument was all conservatives because there were a lot of grim heads that came. As you can imagine, on a college campus, there are a lot of grim heads. And that's actually so funny because I've like gone out to bars before and literally had people ask me about Ryan, like just random people that I've met. Ryan and I went to the bar after the debate and he was getting like, you know, walking on a college campus with Ryan. It was like walking through the DNC with Ryan, which you also experienced.

1:09:32It was hilarious. But so I don't know if the people who cheered were all the conservative kids on the when Ryan said he thinks Israel should be sanctioned. I definitely think some of them were. And I wasn't totally surprised by that. But I do think it should be a wake up call to people on the right who are still resisting the reality about where opinion is on this. They would they would look at those kids and say, well, you've been brainwashed. You've been totally taken in by the like the Islamists. And that's what Laura Loomer would say. Yeah. Yeah. But you actually hear that still in the power structure of the right, which sounds crazy.

1:10:15But that's what they would say to those kids. And I don't think they would necessarily be able to make that argument to their faces because the students would just say, no, we really don't like what happened in Gaza. And then they would have to reckon with that. Yeah. I mean, and I don't even know as much of the extent, obviously, I don't run in young right wing circles, but I don't know the extent to which like the humanitarian concern about Gaza plays into that as much as, at least like from an outside perspective, for me, it feels more like it's a, you know, we don't want our money being sent to Israel.

1:10:47Like, why are we giving them handouts? Or why are we, you know, giving them billions of dollars every year and fighting wars on their behalf? And it feels like they control our government and they have this massive influence over, you know, our political leaders, which I think all of those are true. But it feels more like that than the humanitarian thing. So I'm curious, what do you make of that? So I kind of actually disagree with that because I would say I think a lot of them, it's almost more transgressive in the sense that I'm writing a piece about this right now, which is why I've been thinking about it.

1:11:17There's this like real reconsideration happening. And if like you've watched Tucker on this, he's genuinely pretty thoughtful about why he thinks there were war crimes committed in Gaza and why he thinks it was just from a, he says this from a Christian perspective, immoral. And a lot of these young conservatives are new Catholics, they're converts or they're people who are taking faith way more seriously. So they're leaning into their pope maxing. They're leaning into those arguments. And in a way that like even if you don't want to take them at their word, it's actually kind of more transgressive because it's not just saying Israel controls the American government, although some of them are saying that.

1:11:56But some of it is also like, no, no, no. This is about the entire American project. This is about the proxy wars. This is about America being the bad guy overall on the world stage, which is something you hear like Dave Smith will talk about. And that's, I think, there's something like kind of deeper happening. And it's actually more titillating and transgressive for a young right winger than saying Israel controls the American government to say, no, no, no, like we're Howard Zinn maxing and Pope maxing and we're going in a totally different direction. So anyway, some of it's America first, but I think some of it is that too.

1:12:31Yeah, I have seen, you know, clips of that from both Candace and Tucker, although that's much more of a recent development, like things that leftists were saying at the very start of the genocide in Gaza. Like, you know, two years later, they've sort of come around to and they're waking up to the fact that war crimes were committed every single day. But so, you know, whatever. I'm not mad that they've come around to that position. that's interesting though that you you frame it as sort of like America the bad guys is because it's like I feel like a year ago if I was having a conversation with one of these right-wing people they would call me like you know a radical communist America hater or whatever if I pointed out that we were the bad guys not just over the last you know a couple of years but take it back to Vietnam take it back to the Korean War I would make the case for that like we've been the bad guys for most of American history around the world.

1:13:24Like, look at the history of the CIA and overthrowing democratically elected leaders and backing death squads in Latin America. Like, we've always been the bad guys. Do you think that that sort of element is going to come through, like, almost like a, not even just an anti-war America first element, but like a full-on anti-imperialist element? Yes. And I don't think with everybody, but I think what's happening right now is the wall of Cold War propaganda has holes being poked in it. And when that falls, that falls. And you and I could do a whole episode on who's the bad guy in Contras versus Sandinistas.

1:14:05My argument would just be that both sides were the bad guys. And what's so dangerous about right now is that when people wake up and realize, you know, what really happened with the Contras and they realize the U.S. government or the right itself, so if we're talking about young conservatives, that the right itself was wrong, morally wrong, and lying or using propaganda, then that is like a pillar. That's one of the pillars in like the big building of propaganda. And when those start going, you lose so much trust across the board. It just all starts to shatter and crumble. And I don't think the institutional right is prepared for that at all, but they have to be because that foundation is now being chipped away at, and it will be a reckoning.

1:15:00And it should be a reckoning. I think, honestly, it should be a reckoning because I'm one of those people that has like really, really deep moral concerns about the way our and especially the way the right during the Cold War period built up a philosophy of proxy wars and like imperialism by proxy wars and then used a lot of propaganda to kind of mask the truth about that. And we're still trying to do it. I mean, it's been happening in Ukraine. You could read into some of what's happening in Iran as that. So it's really, really dangerous for the right. And instead of reckoning with it honestly, they're just calling all of these kids commies.

1:15:39And it sucks. Like, it's going to be a really, really, really big problem. them. Yeah. No, I mean, it'll be interesting to your point, because it does feel like those pillars have collapsed. I mean, they've been collapsed on the left or the, I think even amongst liberals, they're collapsing now. But if they fully collapse, how is the US going to try to sell a war with China? Where we're going to try to do another red scare? Do you think that young people are going to fall for that? That we need to do another massive war? No, I think that's done for. And Iran probably put the nail in the coffin on that, you know, on top of everything.

1:16:16Like, you could make maybe the case that, well, people wouldn't have fallen for it post the disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and all of those failures. But this Iran war has just been a total humiliation and has blown up any sort of propaganda efforts from the American government. I think everybody sees through it across the political spectrum at this point. So it's going to be hard for them to try to sell anything in the future. Well, and just to go back to, I mean, we could do this with Nicaragua or we could do this with like Cuba. We could do it with Chile and Nayende. But like when you are told that the Americans were the good guys, even if you come around to my perspective, which was two bad sides, you had two bad sides as proxies for the Soviet Union in the United States, which were in this reasonably hysterical race to prevent nuclear annihilation among the civilians, their civilization, which is why you saw desperate times and desperate measures and some really evil stuff go down.

1:17:13Even if you come to my perspective that those are two bad sides acting badly, if you are told that one is the good guy, incontrovertibly, and that it is unpatriotic to question that. Freedom and democracy. Yes. And if you were told that for your whole life and the kind of illusion starts to crumble that is going to poison people against the United States, going to poison Americans and young conservatives. You're describing my life's journey. That's how you become a leftist. Yes. Or it's how you become a reactionary. Or a fascist or something. Yeah, exactly. No, but really. And so that's what's on the table right now.

1:17:53If the institutional left and the institutional right don't humble themselves and come up with better answers for people who are waking up to the propaganda. So we're in a dangerous place. Yep. I think we can end it off there if you want, unless you've got anything else to... Tell me what you thought of the debate. I'm curious what you thought of the debate. Oh, yeah. I mean, I thought it was... I only saw like a couple longer form clips. I didn't watch through the entirety of it. But I thought the Israel thing was pretty funny. I don't... I can't comprehend in my mind some of the arguments that Scott makes and how...

1:18:32And whether or not he genuinely believes it, I mean, I guess I'll take him at face value that he believes it. But like to say with a straight face to Ryan Grimm, I'm assuming he knew who Ryan was going into that. But to say with a straight face, like, you seem to think that it's a bad thing that Israel plays a large role in American politics. I'm like, yeah, yes, that's a bad thing. I mean, it would be a bad thing for any other country to play a large role in American politics. I mean, if, you know, if whatever, if Pakistan had a massive influence, if, you know, the Pakistan lobby was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into the coffers of like 80 percent of Congress, I would think that's a problem.

1:19:13Like, yeah, that's that's bad and it's not good for our country. And so I just thought it was pretty funny to watch that back. I was like stepping into a rake kind of moment. But yeah, no, I would have been curious to pair Ryan with someone who is like kind of MAGA. But I also thought it was going to be interesting to pair him with somebody who's sort of centrist MAGA, like kind of establishment Republican MAGA who came around reluctantly to MAGA. It would have been interesting to do Ryan against like a real Stephen Miller head. But to see him, I think, against somebody who was like Scott Jennings, pretty much a like mainstream D.C.

1:19:49conservative. Some interesting stuff that came out in that contrast to. like what you were just saying. Like, yeah, that's not, that's very obvious if you're talking to Ryan Grimm, but it's not obvious to, I think, still a lot of people in DC that the left and many on the right think that way too. That's interesting that there's still that mainstream bubble. I think it was, Crystal was making the point yesterday too on Jonathan Greenblatt because he was on with Jake Tapper. It seems like he's getting the cold shoulder now from Mording Joe because they seem like they don't really take him that seriously anymore after that last disastrous interview.

1:20:22But it's just interesting to see, like, the conversation was basically about how if the mission of the ADL on paper is to stop anti-Semitism, which I don't think that's actually Jonathan Greenblatt's job, but if that was his job to stop the rise of anti-Semitism, well, he's failing on that, right? Now, if his other job is to defend Israel and to make sure that the American people stand with Israel, which I think is closer to his real job, he's also failing on that. But then if his third job, which may actually be what he's attempting to do right now, is just to try to intimidate sort of the remaining pillars that do stand with Israel institutionally in the media or institutionally in the government and to make them afraid of touching certain wires and using certain talking points or saying anything that, you know, goes against IDF printed statements.

1:21:17if that's his job, he's still succeeding in some ways. Because you still see the mainstream media is, you know, will run Israeli talking points, will have on, you know, IDF commanders and not challenge them in any meaningful capacity. You know, Congress overwhelmingly still with Israel. Like, there's this massive, massive disconnect that's going on here between the establishment and the people. And that, as an issue, I think, has exposed it more than almost anything else in recent years. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, it's like the report that they put out on anti-Semitism said that it had declined over the course of the last year, but was still like at a higher rate than it had been, I think, probably pre-October 7th.

1:22:02So I don't I mean, it's I don't know what they're trying to say because those numbers are so cooked anyway. Yeah, it's all. Right, right. It's a bit interesting. I have to go watch that clip of Crystal making that point because I actually didn't even see the Tapper clip. Yeah, it was a Tapper. I think he did challenge him a little bit or just ask some basic follow up questions like, do you count criticizing Israel as anti-Semitism? And he sort of danced around. It's in the report. Literally, yes. There are incidents listed as anti-Semitic harassment. It's a huge sizable portion of them. It's just criticizing Israel or some phrase that, you know, he gets offended by or whatever.

1:22:41We were all going through it. in the group chat. And there were tons of examples where it was like this person said something about Israel. This person said like, oh, like from the river to the sea or end Zionism or whatever. And that was considered anti-Semitic harassment. So, yeah. Oh boy. Well, this was fun, Mac. I liked the same. Yeah. Yep. That's all we got for you guys today. We'll have more for you guys Monday unless anything crazy happens over the weekend. We return to a full-blown war or somebody sends a nuke somewhere. Or do you think Sagar does a UFO disclosure break? Or a UFO disclosure.

1:23:15That's possible. Although I think Sagar may be going out of town this weekend. So we'll have to see. Maybe we can get Ryan to do a UFO segment. Or Sagar does one from the road, Crystal and Kyle style. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, that's all we got for you guys. Signing off and we will see you later. Apple Vacations semi-annual sale is here and it's the perfect time to plan your next beach getaway. Enjoy up to$250 off international and Hawaii vacations, up to$150 off domestic trips and hotel savings up to 70 % off. With instant savings of$300,$500, or even$700, your escape has never been more rewarding.

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