8/10/26: Iran Demands Surrender, Trump Officials Gaslight On Economy, Bibi Spits In Trump's Face

24:37Oh, totally. Absolutely. And I think what you're seeing here is the inherent problem you will face when you have started a war of choice. World War II was not a war of choice. These were wars that ultimately was because there was a force out there that was trying to establish global hegemony. And as a result, it was clear to the American people that this was a war that they had to fight to sustain America's own freedom and a global order that would not be under the command of the Nazis. This is, again, going back to some of the things that have been said earlier on, that Trump never tried to sell the war.

25:12And it's true, he never did try to sell the war, because mainly I thought he thought that he could have this war over within four days. There was no need for him to sell it. It would be over with before people had even noticed it. But notice this language, sell the war. You don't have to sell the war if the war is defensive. If Mexico had invaded Texas, there would be no need for any government in the United States to sell the war to the American public. The American public would be up in arms because they would understand that the country is under attack and that this is a defensive war. You only need to sell the war when it is a war of choice.

25:48When you cannot convince the public of the need to fight a war by them simply just seeing the images or understanding the situation as it is, you have to do something extra. to get them to be on board. And thankfully, the American public is now so resistant to these wars of choice, to these unnecessary fantasies of war, that they are resisting, and it's making Mark Levine miserable. And that is quite joyful to see, I have to admit. Always joyful. Last thing we want your reaction to was, I mean, potentially a major announcement. We're still not really sure what to make of it. Let's put A7 here on the screen.

26:24Pakistan saying that they have a new defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It is, quote, purely defensive. It is also open to others. The landmark Mecca joint defense agreement by MBS, by Erdogan, and by the Pakistani prime ministers deepening their security cooperation. It's like some sort of, I mean, I wouldn't call it NATO necessarily, but you do have a nuclear armed power here offering a security umbrella of a defensive agreement between the two. Not quite sure what to make in the immediate and long term, but I'm curious for your reaction. So a lot of speculation going on right now. A lot of folks in Iran are trying to figure out, is this aimed at them?

27:04A lot of Israelis looking at it and thinking, is this ultimately going to be a problem for Israel? The bottom line is this. This is the natural reaction, one of many natural reactions that will be emerging in the region for the next couple of years as a result of the collapse of the American security umbrella. No one in the region will rely solely on the American security umbrella, having seen that it's neither effective nor reliable. So there will be a natural search for other type of constellations in order to be able to make up for that. And it will not be done fully. It will be several different layers and variations.

27:43None of them will be as strong as the American security umbrella was perceived to be, at least at one point, despite the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The question is which direction it will go from here, however. If it ends up, if the Iranians, for instance, play their cards badly, it could end up becoming a regional constellation with the same aim as the U.S. had for the last four decades, which was to isolate and contain Iran. Something that previously was driven by American hegemonic desires would now be driven by regional states and their sense of threat and need seeing the rise of Iran right now.

28:20But I don't think that is where they intended to go. I think this ultimately is more targeting Israel because the American security umbrella has not only shown itself to be ineffective vis-a-vis Iran, but it's also shown itself to be completely ineffective in protecting these countries from Israeli aggression. From Israel bombing Doha to America's inability to sustain and know to Israel when Israel are doing things in the region that are detrimental to the region and detrimental to US interests. This requires some sort of a reaction, some sort of a constellation in the region that manages to put up buffer against it.

28:57The second question is, how credible is it? Because all of these different agreements go only as far as their credibility is willing to take them. Is Pakistan willing to go to war with Iran over an attack on Saudi Arabia? It hasn't so far. Pakistan already has an agreement with Saudi Arabia, and it was never actually actualized during this war. And the Saudis themselves say that they never asked for it to be actualized. But nevertheless, it raises question marks. Will Turkey do it? I find that very unlikely. My hope is, however, that this does not lead into a direction of some form of block formation in the region, but rather that the region understands that the only way to get out of the security dilemma that all of them are faced with right now is to move towards an inclusive security arrangement.

29:46This may end up becoming an interim step towards that. But if it ends up becoming the end destination, then I fear that it will be another one of these block formations that tend to create more conflicts than it actually resolves. And the idea that this is purely defensive reminds me too much of the way NATO is describing itself. And we know how that went. Yes, yes. A lot of parallels between those two. Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate your time. Thank you so much, Valerie.

30:40love and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia A-O Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

31:40of what is a movie has kind of changed anyway too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves Boba. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Taro Reed. That's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski. Yeah. I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time.

32:16Then Mary Steenburgen. Why are you guys talking to me like, why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game? I just really am trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you, okay? If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'ma play you.

32:55Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast, You're the Problem, with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday as part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

33:38Turning now to the economy, which, of course, is a lot of consternation for Americans in the White House, the predominant reason why the Iran war is so dramatically unpopular. Many consumers, businesses are reacting to this in various different ways. One of them is a gas station in upstate New York, which is now offering customers the chance to get a 20 percent discount on gas if they dance for the privilege. What we have here in front of us is being filmed by the clerk. We've got a man here literally dancing for the discount 20 % off. The gas station says this was just a way to brighten up everybody's day.

34:16All I see is just broadcasting humiliation of customers in general trying to take something which seemed, quote-unquote, cute but reveals something much deeper about our society. that people have to dance publicly for the privilege of getting a 20 % discount on the gas. To get the gas at the prices that they were. That used to be. Actually, no, it not even used to be. So it's$4 a gallon, so 20 % off. It's roughly around where things were during the ceasefire. And so in terms of what you actually got beforehand, around$3 a gallon before the war actually was launched. I mean, you don't want to make too much out of these things, but it is one of those.

34:56The fact that it was written up, It was celebrated. It was seen as cute. Like the Washington Post said, oh, look at this nice little thing. Meanwhile, I'm reacting in like abject horror at this, like forcing people. One of those is an old woman. I'm like, you can make this old woman dance. Make grandma dance for her 20 % off. My God. What are we doing? 20 % off. This is madness. Again, these people willingly took part in this, and maybe some of them were just having fun and all of this for give us a discount. Want a discount? show us your best dance move, blasting it on their social media. But there's something deeper to be said.

35:30Well, that question of is it willing? Because you can put someone in a desperate situation and they will do something willingly that is definitely not without under duress. So anyway, a disturbing example of where we are as a society right now. You can make of that what which you will. We had some administration officials on the Sunday shows over the weekend trying to make the case that actually the economy is just fine. No problem. No big deal. Even after we got a shockingly bad jobs report on Friday that we covered on the Friday show where you actually we actually lost jobs that was not expected.

36:07And previous months were also revised downwards. Let's go ahead and take a listen to how Kevin Hassett is spinning this. The economy, according to BLS, lost 23 ,000 jobs in July when economists were expecting a 95 ,000 job gain. The job creation you boasted about for the previous two months, unfortunately, those numbers were also sharply revised down. It turns out 100 ,000 jobs were not created in May and June. You said in June that this was, quote, the strongest job market in your lifetime. By what metric? Yeah, I think that one of the things we're seeing is that these jobs numbers are getting revised left and right.

36:43You can remember over the last couple of years, there were millions of revisions. And the bottom line is that if you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming. As an example, there are 83 ,000 construction workers building factories right now. That's a number that we've never seen before. Initial claims for unemployment insurance are the lowest they've been since World War II. There are more job openings than there are unemployed workers. So there are all these things that suggested the number should have been really strong. And when it didn't come out strong, we sort of dug in and we saw that the two things that made it negative, one of them was a reduction in government workers, and it was mostly teachers at states taking July off.

37:22And the other thing was that the FIFA ended, and so that we had a whole bunch of hospitality workers file for unemployment in July. And so anyway, so you take those two out and you get back to what the consensus number was, about 100 ,000 job creation. There have been job losses for six out of the 18 full months of President Trump's second term. That's a third of them. And the Trump administration has only added 548 ,000 net jobs so far, which is considered very slow growth. It's growth, but very slow. Two million jobs were created in the last 18 months of Biden's presidency. Are you really arguing that your numbers are better than that?

38:02Well, I disagree with your number. We'll have to follow up on email. But, you know, I just looked at the latest number. I have to follow up by email, Sagar. We'll get back to you on that one. Yeah, I don't really have a response right here. Let's actually look at the truth. This whole, like, oh, it's just FIFA ended and hospitality. No. All right, let's put B4 up here on the screen. When you actually dig into the jobs report, Heather Long, always relying on her. She's great. She talks about this. Key takeaway. It's a bleak jobs report. The U.S. labor market is stalling again and is going to make the Federal Reserve's job harder and life for job seekers rough.

38:33The big surprise was job losses in July, but that was only the beginning of the bad news. The unemployment rate fell for the wrong reasons because people continue to leave the labor force. Labor force participation is now at the lowest level since February of 2021. Even worse is that wage growth has now cooled to a mere 3.2%, which is the lowest level in five years. This is not what workers need as inflation soars again. Healthcare is the main industry hiring again. That is not helpful for the economy. I always try to emphasize this to people. To the extent that our GDP is growing, it is because of AI.

39:10But to the extent that the job market is ever growing, it's only because of healthcare. And these are not, I'm not talking about doctors and nurses, which are great occupations. I'm talking about like home healthcare aides, like very low paid labor, no protection, not a particularly high wage. It's grimy work. That's why a lot of it is full of immigrants from the third world countries. It is not an educated or profession that you necessarily want to be employed in. Or, that's one segment of it, it's insurance, like middlemen, people who are working in call centers. So that is not a job growth engine that you want to see in our economy.

39:48And actually, again, just to emphasize, this was one of the worst impacts of the Great Recession. was a huge number of people in 08 who got laid off and they just said, I'm done. Can't find a job anymore. So when you drop out of the labor market, and especially when you're not looking for work for over six months, bad things happen. We all know this. Drug addiction, homelessness, welfare. I mean, it's bad for society, especially whenever you're of prime working age. And then her point there about wage growth is there's no incentive right now to, well, there should be an incentive, But like there's not as much of an incentive to work or to pursue these wages when inflation remains where it is.

40:26Like if it's not going to keep up with inflation and on top of that, an overall housing market. I was just reading this morning. Maybe we'll cover it tomorrow. There are now more younger people who are living at home or there are now the same number of younger people who are living at home than during COVID, during the pandemic. Like what does that mean in terms of our economic structure? I mean, to me, that's very obvious. Housing crisis. Rent is high. Mortgage is high. 26, 27-year-olds are living at home voluntarily choosing to come back because they don't have another choice. It could be a smart decision if you're able to structure it that way.

40:58Most people don't want to do that. And I think that's all evident right now in a lot of this data. Yeah. I mean, things are so dire now that Zoomers are looking at the economy that millennials graduated into with jealousy. Like, wait, what did your chocolate burrito cost? Like, what did your groceries cost? And you want to talk about how hard you had it? Get out of here. What was the housing price at that time? What were you paying in rent? And there's a point there. What did your college education cost even? I mean, it was way too expensive at that time. And now it's just impossible. So it's no surprise to make a political point that millennials and zoomers are coalescing on a very similar politics and are, you know, the real engine pushing forward candidates like Zoran Mamdani or Abdul El-Sayed or Francesca Hong or others across the country.

41:41In any case, to go back to the economic piece of this, you know, there was a lot of previously there was a lot of cope about, oh, but it's because of all of the immigration crackdown. And so when you have job losses, it's because all these immigrants are leaving. And there's still a component of that here. But now you've got native-born workers also losing jobs. You can see the not just boomers retiring, but you can look at the prime age labor force participation that is also going down. And that is a sign of a very unhealthy labor market where people just get dispirited and stop trying because of inflation, because, you know, the types of jobs that are being created are, to Sauer's point, low-paid, very difficult work like home health care, AIDS, etc.

42:24So, you know, that is the landscape that we are facing. But, you know, Fox News hosts will try to put their best spin on it. We've got Maria Bartiromo here giving her best try to say that actually things are going great. Don't worry about it. So, Maria, let me pick up on this past jobs report quickly and get your assessment on the fact that, you know, President Trump is constantly talking about record markets. You mentioned there rising wages and what we are still seeing fewer layoffs. But yet this week already, we're going to be hearing from Democrats about how horrible the economy is. So that's just that's just propaganda.

43:01I mean, look, things are going well. And I think we all feel it. Right, Griff? I mean, look at where we are right now. You've got job creation. You've got economic growth. You've got 18 trillion dollars of new investment. The president's main priority has been to put America first and get the supply chains back to America so that we're not reliant on, you know, Asia for semiconductor chips, which we need for defense or, you know, China for pharmaceutical components. And so that in and of itself is such a positive for the economy and for growth. So really, everyone's going to say what they want to say in a campaign season.

43:36And I expect the campaign season is ramping up right now. But when you actually look at what's going on, things feel pretty good. I've spoken with a number of CEOs who tell me that business is up strongly. And it has to do partly with the big, beautiful bill. I mean, look, all those expensing options. Yes, sorry. No, no, no worries. So I hear you, and that's all great news, and that's what Americans need to hear. But what do you think is leading to the disconnect and maybe some voters and Americans not feeling that way? So why is that, do you think? I think it's messaging. I really do. I mean, the Republicans need to do a better job in telling their story, in communicating what the big, beautiful bill has done for earnings.

44:18Amazing. Just a messaging problem. It's all propaganda that things aren't going well. Sagar, maybe you have some insights into how we're doing on some of the metrics she's laying out of bringing supply chains home, making sure that we're more self-sufficient, you know, rare earth minerals, semiconductors, all of this. How's that going? Yeah, I literally just came across my radar today. There's a new story about batteries. So this is a classic Trump administration story. So we have, obviously, batteries booming business here in the U.S., not just for data centers, but for electric vehicles. Great.

44:48So, of course, batteries have a life cycle. They have to be recycled. Recycling the battery is how you extend the life. There's a ton of critical rare earth minerals inside of them, specifically tungsten. That's the one thing. You don't want it to be sent back to China to be recycled in Asia, so you want to keep it here. So the Trump administration said, nope, you can no longer let any of this stuff leave, the recyclable material. It's called black mass. Well, the problem is is that there's nowhere to recycle it here. So it's just going to rot, actually. And so we have no companies. They're all in the startup phase to be able to recycle any of this.

45:19So not only can we not send it back to China, Japan, South Korea, whatever, to recycle and then send it back here, actually make it useful. We just don't even have that capacity. But the Trump administration can hail that and say, hey, look, we've restricted this, so we're not going to lose any of the minerals. But you have to recycle it to be able to use it, and so you can't use it, right? This is a very small story, but these are the type of things, when you compound together, what do we have? What do we have the ability? Domestic manufacturing, down. In terms of our build-out, it's all for AI.

45:46I mean, even in terms of our new energy build-out. I was just reading today. Amazon is going to build one of the most historic natural gas power plants in Texas. Cool. More energy. Love it. It's all for the data center, right? And it's all purely for the data center. It's not actually any real evidence that it will be able to power the actual homes that are on there. Texas' grid is already under strain. So much so their own governor just decided to put a data center moratorium. Not some leftist. The governor of Texas who can look at their singular grid, which has its own problems, is like, we cannot handle this right now, right?

46:22And this is about water and electricity use in addition to a lot of the land use stuff. So that's the problem. It's like, do we have manufacturing? Sure. But we do not have it at a level that any of us are feeling the benefits. It's all just going to this AI capex spend, which is fine for electricians and a few other trades that gets dispersed. But it's not generally available to people, and especially with wages. That's my last thing. Let's put B4 up here on the screen. This is about inflation wiping out wage gains. you can see it right there. I mean, literally, the orange line is CPI inflation, and the blue line, if you're watching this, is wage growth.

46:58So CPI inflation, because of the Iran war, has now jumped up so high, it's wiped out any of the wage growth, which means your purchasing power has now gone down, in addition to very, very high prices, which have been dramatic ever since the outbreak of COVID. I just think the American consumer has been hammered twice. COVID was a total disaster. And now gas prices, which today I just looked,$4 a gallon on average, that seems to be the status quo. Because I was reading in the Wall Street Journal, we didn't get to this with Trita, that the Trump administration seems to think that they can live in this status quo with Iran, this like, you know, no war, no peace, because gas is, quote, only$4 a gallon, which we both know is just so devastating.

47:44Not just for the inputs of everything that needs to be trucked, et cetera, like, you know, all that. But really, it just eats away at any of the disposable income that people have. And it's about to get cold. So when it gets cold, demand and all that stuff, it's going to go up. Hurricane season, that's all you need. And then the next thing you are looking at$5. I just also want to point out on this manufacturing piece, because this has been such a core of Trump's rhetoric about who he is and what he's going to do economically, et cetera. There was actually U.S. manufacturing growth during the Biden administration in a way that we hadn't seen in years.

48:17And it was as a result of the bills that they were able to pass, which were not working super fast, but they were actually overcoming the long-term trends such that after the COVID recession, you actually had added more manufacturing jobs than had been lost. That is the first time that's happened in our lifetimes in the modern era. Typically, what has happened is there's a recession, there's big job losses, and those manufacturing jobs never come back. because of Trump's policies, both undercutting the CHIPS Act and the tariff policies have been counterproductive. So that positive trend has now reversed.

48:51So even on this core thing that she's trying to point to, oh, the manufacturing jobs are coming back. Kevin Hassett also, all these manufacturing jobs, et cetera. That's just not true. There's, yes, there's some data center jobs, some short-term construction data center jobs. And the vast majority of our GDP growth, by the way, comes from AI CapEx spend. I was just looking at that this morning. But in terms of actually bringing back manufacturing, returning these supply lines, recreating these solid blue collar, oftentimes union, well-paid jobs, they have gone in the polar opposite direction over the course of this administration.

49:26And of course, everything just made so much worse by the choice to get us involved in the Iran war. Right. Exactly. Iran kind of poured gasoline on the fire, but this stuff was all there. You can actually see it even going back. And yeah, I mean, even Build Back Better and all that, I have my immense criticisms of the way that it was laid out. But the thing is, is like, to me, it wasn't even nearly enough. Like we were talking about the EV America chart. If you drive an electric vehicle, you'll see some of these things that they're pitly don't work. They're not there. And that was just the, that was with what the Biden people had spent.

49:56If we wanted more, like it would take immense amounts of investment. And What is tragic to me is no one even proposes it anymore. Electricity and all that remains actually quite high, in my opinion. If you look at especially consumption in Virginia, where we live, 40 % of our power is literally going to data centers. It's beyond insane. Oregon, I think, is around 33%. So you've got relatively high consumer electric price, but you have no genuine incentive to build out everywhere. Again, China does not care about data centers or, you know, build or anything because they have so much power. Now, a lot of their power is, you know, filthily generated.

50:34That's true. But, you know, here we have the option. They're adding renewable capacity at an insane clip. In 10 years, they will not have the same problem as to where they are with coal and oil and all of that, et cetera. But, you know, in today's society, they have a bargain with their whole society for a billion-something people. Electricity is quite cheap, you know? And just imagine what you can build on top of that. and if you invest for the future. We just, we don't have that right now. And that's how you get this private data center, you know, build out the labor force participation rate where it is.

51:04And just everybody knows, like the malaise of our society. It's like when young people who previously had the dream of being able to go rent relatively cheap place, like you're saying with the millennials who we thought we had it bad, that just doesn't, you know, I was looking at median rent and all of that in San Francisco, which of course is now, why are we talking about thousands of dollars? Like people are competing for$5 ,000 a month in rent. One place, five grand a month think it was a studio apartment got 32 different applications i i don't even know how you can live like that that's 60 grand a year that you're throwing away and it's not exactly like you could buy it either because it's a 3.5 million dollar townhome that's that's that's one you know obviously one major outlier city but it is unless you're living in austin or houston you're going up a lot too well austin rent has gone down by about 20 from the peak but it is still high compared to where it was previously but i mean you're still better off bang for your buck in Austin Houston.

51:52I was just looking today about Dallas is one of the only places where it's called y 'all street, like financial, financial jobs are going up there. But unless you live in there, like in a place that's heavily deregulated on housing, your experience is going to look a lot more like San Francisco than it is like anything in Austin and Houston. And even Austin and Houston, having been from the area, it is cheaper relative, you know, in the national market, but a lot of people there are already upset because compared to where things were, let's 10 years ago, certainly for them, it's gone up much higher.

52:20Overall, it's just a bad, bad situation. Okay, let's get to Israel.

52:47sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. I thought you were all going to write a song.

53:20I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia A-O Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode, we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anyway, too, right?

53:55What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves Boba. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Taro Reed That's a good name They're all named after cast members of American Pie I never looked up if she was in this but I call him Leachie Sobieski I don't think she was in American Pie Haven't looked it up She was prominent around the same time Then Mary Steenburgen Why are you guys talking to me Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play play game.

54:38I just really am trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Turturro. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, The Longest Yard, or Spike Lee's Black Klansman. But I'm also from Queens, which means I know pizza. And on my new podcast, Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro, I deliver pizza from Prince Street Pizza to a new guest. Are you delivering pizza now? Then we sit down for a real conversation. I've shared a slice with everyone, from Seth Rollins, What are you doing with my belt? To Alex Rodriguez, Just to let you people know, we're talking to one of the goats here.

55:15To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am. And now, we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Turturro. It's called happiness. Delivering happiness. Mariano Rivera. Oh my God. And many, many more. Open your free High Heart Radio app, Search Delivering Happiness with Nick DeTuro. And listen now. So recently, Trump announced with great fanfare that there was a new deal that was struck to enable Hamas disarmament. Well, Benjamin Netanyahu has now shot that down completely. Let's put this up on the screen from The Washington Post.

55:52Netanyahu rejects Trump-backed Gaza plan for Hamas disarmament and Israeli withdrawal. I'll read you a little bit here. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected that U.S. back plan on Sunday for Hamas to lay down their weapons in Gaza in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the territory. A proposal Donald Trump recently touted as a breakthrough toward ending the conflict there. Netanyahu at the start of the government meeting said that Israel does not accept the 15-point document. Hamas in a statement reaffirmed its own commitment to the plan and agreed on with the Board of Peace, which was created by Trump, called on parties to help ensure its implementation.

56:27The White House, when asked for comment, referred The Washington Post to the Board of Peace, which did not immediately respond that dismissal is the latest apparent setback for Trump's effort to end Middle East conflicts. Some of the requirements here for Israel included withdrawing U.S. forces from the region. Oh, I'm sorry, that's the Iranian requirements for the U.S. in the other conflicts that we're involved in here. But in any case, part of this deal, which was, you know, the next phase of the quote-unquote Gaza peace plan was that Israel was going to have to withdraw from Gaza, that that was going to have to happen before Hamas laid down their arms.

57:03They've been signaling for a long time that they were open to doing so, that they did not even want to be in control of governance within Gaza. That was not a sticking point. And so they kind of had placed this bet of expecting that Israel was likely to reject these terms and move forward in good faith with this deal. And now we have the predicted outcome here, especially with Netanyahu sort of under a lot of political pressure heading into his own election. Right. Well, that's a very good point. I do think, though, it still bears a lot of importance that you can look at, especially if you're Iran, because Iran now has multiple examples of so-called deals that Trump has struck since the conflict with them has begun.

57:47So obviously they have their own experience with the MOU, but then they have to look abroad. You had the entire fall apart of the civilian nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that went apart like this when Trump just changed the negotiated, you know, the change, the terms of the deal at the very last minute. But this isn't honestly an even more important one because Trump tried to go around and, you know, the United Nations or any sort of, you know, any sort of existing international structure. He got all these Middle Eastern countries and kind of bullied them into joining this board of peace, paying all of this money.

58:17Okay, Board of Peace, Israel accedes to the Board of Peace, says, yes, we're going to have this grand peace deal and all that. And just to remind people, let's put C3 up there on the screen. This is fundamentally like what it said. What it said is that Hamas had agreed to the terms of said deal where they were going to disarm and surrender its weapons in stages. Israel would then obviously have to withdraw its forces over a period of time. They did not even specify what that period of time was. and all of this had signatories and mediators from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and of course the United States, which the Board of Peace is like, what is it Trump is like the president for life.

58:53Trump had even called it the historic agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas. So you could not describe it as anything but an extremely pro-Israeli deal. There's no UN enforcement, none of that. There's regional buy-in, kind of this extra judicial, you know, League of Nations type thing that Trump was trying to do. But then fundamentally when a push comes to shove, Netanyahu's like, I can't sign this because at the end of the day, my society wants me to stay there. They don't want me to stay there. They want to colonize, recolonize the entire thing, which is the truth of this. And as you pointed out, this kind of puts it all together.

59:27Let's put C2 up here on the screen is that Netanyahu's main opponent, Eisencott, has now suggested that the U.S.-backed disarmament deal left Hamas in power. So he is saying, you know, attacking Netanyahu. Isn't he allegedly from the left or center or left? Yeah, so Gadi Eisenkot is the primary opposition figure against Netanyahu in these elections that are upcoming. He is held down as a more liberal Israeli politician. This guy is former high up in the IDF. He is the author of the Dahiya Doctrine, not a moderate figure in any regard, but maybe a little bit more committed to the, you know, apartheid-style democracy that they have in Israel.

1:00:10So he's held up as this liberal savior. But you can see here from his comments, he agrees with Netanyahu that, no, we will never withdraw from Gaza. This is not possible. This is not on the table. And in that, he also agrees with Bezalel Smotrich, who said in a video on Twitter, there is no Hamas in Gaza. That's the goal of the war. We are committed to it. The IDF cannot withdraw a single millimeter from the Gaza Strip prior to the disarmament of Hamas. And Netanyahu also said, just so everybody's clear, that he, as long as I am prime minister, a Palestinian state will not be established, which is reiterating something he has long said and stood by.

1:00:46So you can see that whether it's the quote unquote left in Israel or Netanyahu and his, you know, government, which includes these outright terrorist fascists like Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, They are all aligned in finding it unacceptable for them to withdraw at all from Gaza. And in fact, what they have promised is to take over more and more of Gaza. And by the way, while this is all this ceasefire is in place, there has continued to be mass slaughter in the Gaza Strip. They have since the ceasefire has been put in place. They have killed more people in Gaza than was killed on October 7th by Hamas.

1:01:22So and that pace seems to be escalating, too, by the way, which is a very, very troubling trend. We can put C4 up on the screen headline here as the Board of Peace cosplays diplomacy. Israel once again ramps up killing in Gaza. I think Ryan mentioned some of this when you guys were doing the show on Thursday. Just absolute horrifying things. You know, a fetus that's laid out on the ground after the mother is murdered. a wedding tent that is blown up with the groom-to-be inside. Mass civilian casualties. And again, the trend line is that this is increasing because as Trump stops paying attention, which he can always be counted on to lose interest and turn to other things, he's already bored with the Iran war too, that they're able to get away with more and more and more.

1:02:12So, you know, all of Gaza is effectively rubble. They're living in miserable conditions. There were also strikes on a medical supply tent, so basic medical supplies that are needed in mass quantities in the Gaza Strip because you have so many sick and injured people. That was also destroyed. And meanwhile, they keep encroaching further and further into this territory. So, no, they don't have any intention of moving forward with any sort of deal with regard to the Gaza Strip. And Trump, of course, if he wanted to and wanted to avoid the effective humiliation of him that this entails, because Israel is just basically saying, no, we're not going to play ball here.

1:02:50We don't care that there was some agreement that was made or that this was how things were supposed to proceed when we agreed to the ceasefire. He could certainly compel them to actually have to hold up their end of the deal. But he showed zero interest or willingness to do that. Well, I think it's important for that reason, again, is that you have Lebanon, which is also happening at this moment. Let's put C4 up here. So while they're killing people in Gaza, they're also killing a lot of people in Lebanon. And remember, Lebanon is one of the main reasons why we don't have any ceasefire or peace deal between the United States and Iran.

1:03:21I really believe that Israel and Lebanon was not party to the conflict, that this thing, I wouldn't say be over, but would be much closer to being over than it is today. Remember, Iran has now said not only Lebanon will be included in some sort of restarting negotiations. negotiations, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Gaza all need to be included. Are they serious about that? I don't know. But they were serious about it for sure. I think they probably are serious about it. I certainly think so because at this point they're trying to flex their power because they're trying to show Professor Pape, obviously, his framework so useful here.

1:03:54You have Iran, which was a rump economy with no control over the Strait of Hormuz, after the war controls the Strait of Hormuz, has the ability to compel Israeli and U.S. diplomatic power in Lebanon, has the ability to kick the United States or severely diminish their projection of power in the region, this is regional hegemon stuff. Not fully there, but ascending and trying to get there. Somebody looked at some of the data for what they're going to charge on the straight between five and seven. I mean, that alone would be like a third of their entire GDP every single year in new fees. And if If they have sanctions and access to the Western banking system, it will be a filthy rich country by this time is over.

1:04:36The reason I'm connecting it to this is that they came under a decent amount of criticism for not including Gaza in their initial demands over the memorandum. I seem to think that this will now feel like this. I seem to think that this will now be at least some part of what it looks like in the future. And Netanyahu has spit in Donald Trump's face. There is no other way around. Trump hailed the agreement. The Board of Peace hailed the agreement. These are Trump's chosen people. They don't give a shit about Palestine or anything. Even them, they're like, okay, guys, can you agree to this? Sure, sure, maybe.

1:05:10And now they're like, nope, we're not going to do it. We're not going to do it. I mean, it's stunning, honestly. Yeah, absolutely. Another humiliation for Trump at the hands of the Israelis. And I think the Gaza piece with regard to Iran is also really important to underscore. It's something that Professor Morandi had said to us. He said, listen, next time, if Iran moves forward with negotiations, it's not just going to be Lebanon. Gaza will be included in the requirement that there actually is a ceasefire, not a fake ceasefire where, you know, you cease, we fire, which is what's been going on, but an actual implemented ceasefire.

1:05:43And so, you know, the price has gone up in terms of those negotiations. And, you know, Netanyahu once again revealing that he has no interest in anything but a status quo that effectively benefits him. and these elections hanging over all of it, you know, he feels like also that even if he wanted, which he doesn't, even if he wanted to accept this deal, that this would be unacceptable because it's not where the population is. They have zero interest in any sort of accommodation here. And so he would be attacked from his right by the quote unquote liberals that are running against him. So that is the state of play.

1:06:50We'll see you next time. guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised not just words, but a song. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia, A-O Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 3 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families. It's a scorched earth war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want.

1:07:34Cindy said, I had to choose between the truth and my family, and I had to choose the truth. Listen to Season 3 of Burden of Guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:07:50Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clemens. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode, we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed and Mary Steenburgen. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.