Listen to Room Go Quiet as Rubio Says the Ugly Truth About Iran

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1:12I'm Dave Rubin and joining me today is a former CIA covert operations officer, Mike Baker, as well as activist and attorney, Elika LeBan. Mike, Elika, welcome to the show. Thanks very much, sir. Thank you.

1:55And Elika, you you on the human side of what has gone on in Iran over the years. And you've had a couple of videos that have gone super viral lately. You've both been on the show before, but maybe maybe I'll give you each just a moment to reintroduce yourselves for audience that don't know you. So, Elika, maybe just a quick 30, 45 seconds on who you are and how you got involved in all of this. If you could do that, I'll give you. I mean, I'm still trying to figure that out myself because it all seems just so accidental. so I was I'm from Iran my parents are from Iran I was born and raised in London I moved to the states to become an attorney I live here now as an attorney I sort of started speaking up for Iran when these protests and uprisings started to happen a few years ago and then since then I've just sort of become you know deeply involved in the conversation about the Middle East especially because of how much distortion there is around the facts, around the context.

2:55And I just think that right now, more than ever, people need to understand the Middle East through a non-Western lens, which is often how they're looking at it. So yeah, that's kind of how I got here. Yeah. And you've had a couple videos, we played one of them earlier in the week, that have gone mega viral, just explaining the disconnect between the people of Iran and the ruling party of Iran. Mike, I know my audience is well familiar with you, But if you want to do a quick Mike Baker bio, we can do that and then we'll dive in. Sure. I like long walks on the beach and quiet nights at home. Yeah, I know.

3:3020, 20, 20 years. Do you like cats? You know what? I've got I've got young kids and they always bring home strays. We have three cats currently. People are making notes now. But now about 20 years with the CIA and operations side of things, all of it overseas. He's got out. I've got a business CEO of a company called Portman Square Group, which is an intelligence and investigations and due diligence firm. And, of course, host of the President's Daily Brief podcast, which look at me marketing all these things. Wow. Very professional. All right. Well, let's dive in. I thought I thought this video of Marco Rubio from January of last year during a Senate hearing, I thought this would be a nice way to kick us off.

4:11Take a look. Two points I want to make about Iran, and it's really important. When we talk about Iran, I'm talking about the radical Shia clerics and not the people. The people of Iran are people of an ancient civilization, an ancient culture with tremendous pride and advances, and I don't know who take great pride in their Persian heritage and identity, and I don't know of any nation on earth in which there is a bigger difference between the people and those who govern them than what exists in Iran. And that's a fact that needs to be made repeatedly. In no way is the clerics who run that country representative of the people of that country and of its history and of contributions it's made to humanity.

4:47And it's a point I wish we would continue to make. All right, Elika, I think you can see with that. There's a reason that I wanted to start with that clip. You were nodding along. Can you can you explain a little bit more? Can you dive in a little bit deeper on that? Because I think the average person who's watching the protests or seeing stuff on CNN, they just simply don't understand the ethnic makeup and obviously the history of the country. Yeah. I mean, look, as far as the percentage of people who are against the regime in Iran, it's at a steady 85 percent. And we know this because we've had consistent polling throughout the past several decades that reveal that the great majority of the people are against the regime.

5:28And I think the conversation is just such almost an absurd conversation to have because on what planet, on what universe could you ever assume that any people, much less the Iranian people, who are very pro sort of these values of freedom, would be happily subjugated by a terrorist or authoritarian regime? And this is where the conversation just goes into the territory of absurd propaganda. I mean, imagine saying that, you know, during Stalin's rule, the majority of Russians were pro-Stalin. How can you be pro a dictatorship that is massacring you en masse, that is robbing all of your rights, all of your freedoms?

6:07And if you remember, I mean, you don't remember because we weren't alive, but during that time, the same media, the same New York Times reporters were going there and saying that, you know, Stalin was a great guy and there was no famine and none of this stuff was happening. and the Russians were huge fans of Stalin. And we've seen this cycle over and over again. It is just to be basically assumed that if there is a terrorist organization that is ruling a nation, a dictatorship, an authoritarian regime that robs you of your rights and freedoms, the people of Iran, the people of any such nation are against them.

6:40And I think even the assumption, we've seen a lot of people saying this online now, going on Piers Morgan and all of these shows saying most Iranian people are pro-regime. You have to have the most bigoted assumption of any people to believe that, that they are so savage, that they are such barbarians, that they enjoy being murdered for some type of upholding some type of ideological extremism. That is the underlying assumption. So that's all to say that I could sit here going back and forth endlessly about polls, about evidence, about how many people are out in the streets. But to just, It's such an obvious thing to believe that it doesn't even bear explaining.

7:21Right. I mean, if nothing else, the complete hypocrisy of the mainstream left has been so exposed during all this where they're suddenly rooting for a fanatical religious group of people who are oppressing women and minorities and et cetera, et cetera. Mike, can you suddenly? Not suddenly. I shouldn't say suddenly. Very outwardly now, particularly with social media. But yes, basically for four decades at least. Mike, can you talk a little bit about the disconnect? I think it's hard for people in a Western lens to understand how there can be such a disconnect between the government and the people.

7:57Like, how can they rule such a large landmass with so many people who have such a rich history of Western values? How is it even possible? I think people just can't imagine that. Well, they've got a very, in a way, don't misconstrue the way I use this word, but they've got a very sophisticated uh an entrenched security apparatus um and they've developed that over decades look i've got a old buddy of mine now deceased was one of the hostages um back uh when this regime came to power um and uh they beat the hell out of him repeatedly um during that that thing but uh he would if he was alive still he would be a very sort of sad individual because of the cycle of what we're watching.

8:48Just right now, the protests feel different, or they had felt different. They were building, they were spreading. It crossed over a variety of sectors and demographics, population. And so it was feeling different to people who have watched this ever since 79, when protests have come out, and then they've fizzled or they've been crushed by the regime. this one felt different but i i gotta tell you i'm a very cynical person because right now i'm feeling like this may just be part of that cycle and if the if the white house i know i'm going a little off topic here from the question no no we were going to get there so it's okay if the white house when they say help is on the way um to to those protesters to the dead and to the people who are risking their lives.

9:40When you tell them that after years of relatively meaningless support from the international community in the U.S., it means something. And it gave them courage and strength, I believe anyway, over the past week to continue. So if that help at the end of the day is nothing more than, well, we put diplomatic pressure on them. We told them to stop the killings. They told us they'd pretty much stop. killings and they're not going to do any public execution. So yeah, there we are. Well, we're back to business as usual then. And that sad cycle just keeps going. So we will do more on the military version.

10:19I should note we're taping this on Thursday afternoon and this will go live at 11 a.m. on Friday. So anything can happen basically in the next 20 or so hours. So some of the military moves specifically may change. But Alec, I want to show you this collage of pictures, which I'm sure you've seen. I mean, it's really just so illustrative of what's going on there. These are young Iranian women who are lighting cigarettes with Khomeini's image. I mean, this literally could get them killed or thrown in jail or God knows what else. Can you talk a little bit about what it has been like for women living under this oppression?

10:57Well, so you have to realize that the young people in Iran, especially young women, they are the same as young women everywhere they have access to tiktok they have access to when they can get through and these are people who are seeing the standards and wave yeah these are people who have been seeing the standards and ways of life of liberal democracies across the world they see young american girls dancing on tiktok they want to dance on tiktok they see young kids in the west you know making music living their lives having fun and they're not able to even do that they can't do any of those things in public they can't sing in public they They can't dance in public.

11:33They can't make TikTok videos. They can't show themselves without their hair. It's not just that they're living in extreme repression. They don't even have the ability to normalize their circumstances because they have access to the outside world now. That is living completely different, right? This isn't history where you could be so isolated and so insulated from the outside world that you could effectively normalize your conditions and believe that you were fine. Those days are over. The Iranian women have been long seeing the way that women live freely out in the world. And that is what has made them so indignant.

12:07It is what has made them so angry. And it's what is propelling them to take to the streets because they just want a normal life. You know, this isn't just about, you know, sure, there's the political prisoners, there's the executions, there's the fact that this Iran right now has the highest executions per capita, more than North Korea. China, obviously, we don't really know those numbers. But that aside, just the basic daily life is what young Iranian women are looking for. They're looking to be able to go out and show their hair without fear. They're looking to be able to express themselves the way the rest of young women in the world express themselves without fear.

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13:20You'll get step-by-step guidance, transparent pricing, and U.S.-based service from a trusted team that's handled over$2.5 billion in precious metal transactions. With Noble Gold Investments, protecting and growing your wealth isn't just their job, it's their commitment. Visit DaveRubinGold.com today to claim your free wealth protection kit. That's DaveRubinGold.com. Noble Gold, helping you build a stronger future. So Mike, to that point, how much of this do you view as sort of the revolution, as an inevitability of technology in some sense. So when they had the last real uprising, which was when Obama was president, even though we had internet and we had social media, it wasn't as ubiquitous everywhere where now it's nonstop 24 hours a day, even though the internet has been cut and phone lines have been cut there and even they're going after Starlink now and all sorts of stuff.

14:11But the point that Alec is making is the Iranians know what life outside of the country looks like in a tremendous way now. So in some sense, you can't stop a revolution in that way. I mean, you can kill a lot of people, but you may not be able to stop it. Yeah, the regime can certainly try to kill their way out of it. And they haven't shown any reluctance in the past to go that route with violence and arrests. But there's no doubt that technology, right, has made it more difficult for locking down a population, right, and saying you can't know what life is like. Like you go back to the Cold War, to the old Soviet Union, right?

14:48And the difficulties for Russian citizens, as an example, to understand what the West looked like, right? They were incredibly hungry for information about what was going on out there. And when they found out about it, it was a revelation. But now – Right. Now you can tweet through the Iron Curtain. Exactly. And so there's only so much taken to. That's good. Yeah. And those images – I just wrote that down. I'm going to screw that one. You guys can use that. No, I'm taking it. Okay. Okay, now that's going to be scary. Yeah, so the way that information flows nowadays, it absolutely, you know, it shows when they cut communications, when they do an internet blackout, it is obvious, obviously.

15:32It's an effort to try to prevent images to get out. It's an obvious effort to try to prevent the protesters from communicating with each other. But they've shown an amazing resilience, as have other populations, in learning workarounds. And certainly you just mentioned Starlink. Starlink has been very important and is playing a role right now. So I want to throw to a video. You sort of referenced this a moment ago, Mike. But Trump is now saying the killing has stopped, which is perhaps offering a pause in whatever our military maneuvers might be. Take a look. On Iran, you said that the killing has stopped.

16:07Who told you that the killings have stopped? We have been informed by very important sources on the other side, and they've said the killing is stopped and the executions won't take place. There was supposed to be a lot of executions today and that the executions won't take place. And we're going to find out. I mean, I'll find out after this. You'll find out. But we've been told on good authority and I hope it's true. Who knows? Who knows? Alec, my general take on Trump is that he's done so many good things that he offers a little bit of stuff out there and then he does other things, right? So I don't think this means we are not going to do anything.

16:47But when you heard that, OK, so some people over there told us the killings have stopped. What was your reaction? Well, first of all, the goalpost has been moved, OK, because the first statement was if the killing begins, we intervene. Now the goalpost has been moved. well since the killing has stopped we won't intervene that wasn't the that wasn't the initial promise that drew people into the streets so I think what concerns me is that you know a lot of people have been saying to me lately this is it's happening they're going in Iran's going to be free and I have been very very hesitant to become excited about this not because I'm a pessimist but because of pattern recognition I've spent the past two years carefully paying attention to detail on how the US and Israel is reacting in Iran.

17:36And so far, they've been taking conservative measures. If they were going to give us the Maduro package, we would have gotten the Maduro package on October 8th. Why would we suddenly wake up tomorrow and get the Maduro package? We're not getting the Maduro package. Everything that they've done thus far has been extraordinarily conservative in response to the massacres that these terrorists have been committing across the Middle East. and so there's a reason why in my eyes there's a reason why Trump keeps making these statements we're going to do something we might do something well we'll change the goalpost is because there's some data there there's some data in the conservative measures that they've taken that leads a reasonable observer to say that it doesn't seem that anything that happens going forward is going to be beyond conservative I'm not saying that they aren't going to do anything what I believe is that Trump said that to try and as a sort of you know bluff thinking that the regime wouldn't respond.

18:30And then if it did respond, knew that he would cover his ass somehow by doing something. And that is what I expect. I expect that he will do something. I expect that Israel will do something. But will they initiate a regime change? No. And I have a lot of opinions about why, but I'll just stop there for now. Well, maybe we can get to that a sec. But Mike, can you talk about like, what do you think the legitimate military options are? If the idea is, OK, we want to help the people of Iran rise up, but we know that first, I mean, the country is absolutely huge also. So it's not like you're just going in and snagging Maduro in the middle of the night.

19:04Right. And we don't even necessarily know where Khomeini is and the mullahs and blah, blah, blah. But but what would it look what would be sensible that you could hear that Trump could put out there that you'd be like, all right, I think maybe this could work. Yeah. Look, I mean, when they talk about doing something, this sort of help concept, it's on its way, you have to put it in different buckets, right? So one of the things they could do in today's world is cyber attacks, right? Why would they do that? Well, they would take down the mechanisms, sort of the machinery of communications blackouts, right?

19:37So you would then try to open up the country to the outside world. That's one concept. Obviously, another is economic sanctions. I don't believe that that inspires the people on the streets. If you're talking about kinetic action, military action, then they've already got their target packages, right? This is something that's been sitting on the shelf for a while now. It's not as if the most recent NSC meeting was so we could come up with, well, okay, what targets do we want to hit? They know that. And you're talking about possibly military bases in and around Tehran that would be housing units that are responsible for getting out of the streets.

20:13You've got a combination of law enforcement, police and paramilitary and militias out there. But you hit those military units because they put the army out, which showed you how serious these protests were from the regime's point of view. They actually unleashed the army to deal with protests. So you could go after those units that are responsible. You could take out some individual senior leadership. The intel is pretty good. And a lot of them were taken out during the 12-day war. So I think that's kind of where they would be focused is to try to say this is not about regime change. It's punishment for your behavior.

20:54But the idea underlying all that is to provide some meaningful support that would allow the people to stay in the fight, right? To give them the hope and courage and strength to stay in the fight. That's what you would be looking to do because, again, regime change always brings with it a lot of pushback and sort of a reputation there. But I think that's kind of where we'd be with. I think personally, President Trump is. Look, there may he's got a history of doing this with head fakes. Right. So as to your point, Dave, you know, he'll say something and then there's something else on the way that could be the case.

21:34Personally, I hope it is, because, again, going back to that comment, I would hate to see this end in the same sort of cycle that we've seen over the years. Right. In this specific instance, it seems like his rhetoric and the messaging he's put out has gone so far that if we don't do anything, it seems worse than the Obama red line. I'm not saying I know what to do or anything else, but it seems like knowing Trump, I mean, he does follow, unlike Obama, he follows through. So his red line actually is in marker where maybe Obama's was in pencil. But I'm curious, let me ask you both the same question.

22:08What would you say to people, to just like the average American who's just like, you know what, I see the stuff and it's terrible and I don't want people to die or anything else, but it's another part of the world and I just don't care anymore. What would your response mean to that, Alika? well i just want to you know kind of reiterate this point because this is the the the foundation of it is that people don't think that the u.s or anyone should ever really get involved in regime change and then you can actually make a pattern out of this what all of these presidents have in common starting with jimmy carter then obama and now we don't know about trump maybe but what they have in common is that they were almost all arrested by ideology this idea that Western imperialism is the greatest evil.

22:50And they said it. They weren't shy about admitting it. When Carter helped to bring Khomeini to Iran, there was this idea that the Shah was a Western puppet. And to do the right thing was to eject anything to do with Westernism and bring this indigenous revolution to Iran, right? And then you had Obama, who in 2009, during the Green Movement, had an opportunity to intervene. And he said out of his own words, when he admitted that he made a mistake. He said, people said to me that I would be a Western tool and all of those things, right? Same rhetoric, same ideological arrest. I can't move forward because of this anti-Western rhetoric.

23:28And now we're living in the exact same, we are in a historic groundhog day. Donald Trump, the thing that's going to hold him back is that he doesn't want to be the one who gets the reputation for regime change in Iran. Why? Because the concept of Western intervention has been made the greatest evil, even against the greatest evil. Now it has gotten to the point where the crime is not the crime. The help is the crime. How have we become so distorted, mentally distorted, that criminals committing mass murder is no crime, but the intervention from the outside world is the real danger? And so what you can see through all of this is, go on.

24:06No, sorry, go ahead, finish up, please. no just how how much humanity has been forsaken for ideology and it isn't just any ideology let's be honest it is the ideology of the elite of the intelligentsia it is this romantic intelligentsia concept that people should free themselves but how how do you free yourself it's like telling a nation hey you know we'd really love to stop this atomic bomb dropping from you on you but we we really think that you should free yourself from the atomic bomb you know it's like telling somebody who's been tied up by a murderer, calling 911, hey, you know, we'd love to send help, but we just, we really think you should free yourselves, right?

24:44It's this concept of this sort of noble martyrdom, which is really just the righteous fantasies of the Western intelligentsia. And that is what rules everything. And that is what's so scary about this entire situation is that we are all, we all have to surrender to these righteous fantasies of the intelligentsia. What if your only resolution this year was to get better sleep? Just imagine how much more energy you'd have, how much easier it would be to handle stress and how much simpler everything else would feel. That's why a smart way to start 2026 is with CBD from CB Distillery. Over 90 % of CBD customers say they sleep better with CBD.

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25:56That's cbdistillery.com, promo code RUBEN. Mike, so to that point, I mean, is one of the bigger problems with the Western intelligentsia is that if we don't do anything, meaning America, then nobody does anything. We all know that. France isn't getting involved. The UK is not getting involved. The Dutch aren't coming to save anybody. Even the other countries in the Middle East are not going to do anything. So there's a weird disconnect where the Western intelligentsia can say whatever the hell they want, but everyone knows it's Trump or bust. Yeah, and that's been the case, whether it's been Trump or not, over the years is, you know, people do turn to the U.S.