JD Vance’s Warning to Israel, the Last Desperate Move of Israel-Firsters & Iran’s Growing Strength

30:15And their reaction, its agents in the United States, including Randy Fine, is, shut up, Holocaust. They built it because the Holocaust. Well, I mean, okay. Without even getting any debate about how Israel was built, under what circumstances, who did it, it's a little more complicated than that. Actually, it was controlled by Britain. And a lot of British diplomats and soldiers and officers had to be killed in terror attacks before they finally abandoned it to the settlers. But whatever, leaving that aside to invoke the Holocaust, with no mention of the fact that tens of hundreds of thousands of American men died fighting the Nazi regime.

30:59The United States did not abet the Holocaust. The United States fought the Nazis and hundreds of thousands of Americans died and many more were wounded and their lives destroyed fighting the Nazis. So you would think if you're an American member of Congress, you would preface every reference to the Holocaust with, you know, a lot of Americans paid the ultimate sacrifice fighting this stuff. But no, He would never say that because it would absolve America of the unearned guilt from those murders 80 years ago. So, of course, the point of invoking the Holocaust is to say, hey, you've got a lot to feel guilty for.

31:36Shut up. But, of course, the United States has nothing to feel guilty for. Zero. When it comes to its relationship with Israel. The United States has done a lot more for Israel than Israel has done for the United States. That's just a fact. It's a math question. Show me numbers that contradict that. You can't because they don't exist. They don't even, nothing in that realm exists. But here you have a man with no moral authority to speak on any topic, lecturing the US government in his own party. He's a Republican. This is a Republican vice president, Republican administration. But these questions for Randy Fine supersede party ID because the most important thing in Randy Fine's life is the fortunes of the Israeli government, not of Israel itself.

32:22By the way, if you cared about Israel, you would not take Randy Fine's position. You would not laugh at a genocide. Everyone who laughs at a genocide is going to be punished, including Randy Fine, at some point, people who committed the genocide will be punished most harshly, and that's the Israeli government. So like, it's not in their long-term interest to encourage this kind of criminal behavior, obviously, anymore to be in your kids' interest to give them heroin, no matter how much they wanted it. If you loved your kids, don't give them heroin. If you love your ally Israel, don't abet genocide because it's not going to end well for them or for you.

32:57But whatever. Randy Fine, when he hears any, not even criticism, mild chastisement of Israel, immediately launches into Holocaust mode. This is not sustainable. That's kind of the point. Obviously, it's not justifiable, but it's not sustainable. so when you tune into Fox and they're doing yet another segment of the rise in anti-Semitism in America, and you think, well, maybe there is a rise in anti-Semitism in America. There's certainly a massive rise in distrust of Israel. Massive. But where does that come from? Is it because people just woke up in the morning like, you know what? I'm going to blame all my problems on the Jews.

33:36They just hate the Jews. It's an ancient hatred. I'm mad they've been poisoning wells or whatever. Just millions of Americans decide to become irrationally hateful one day? Probably not. probably not just anti-Semitism. It's not just this ancient hatred that just rears its head randomly like a bubonic plague or something. No, it's not an active nature in this specific case, and it's not aimed at all Jews. Hardly. It's disapproval at the behavior of a secular government that we fund. And everybody knows that, except for the tiny percentage, and it's a very tiny percentage, most of them seem to have congressional seats, of American leaders who seem to sincerely believe, and I will give Randy Fine credit for sincerity, probably sincerely believe that the only motive for criticizing the secular government of Israel must be irrational Jew hatred.

34:34Of course, they don't even address the many, many Jews in good standing who have the same view of the government of Israel, which is it's bad. It's terrible for the U.S. They don't even address people like that because that you know that's just the cognitive dissonance is just unbearable like what do you do with glenn greenwald you're not really jewish shut up you're a nazi okay now so basically the point is when you have criticism that is rooted not in hatred but in reality and when you have a fundamental conflict of interest israel needs to have one thing the much larger patron country needs to have another thing.

35:15You're facing a really tough situation that you have to assess critically, rationally, non-emotionally with an aim to minimizing damage on all sides. What you don't do is threaten another 9-11 if you don't get your way. Because you may pull off another 9-11, okay, but it's not going to change the fundamental dynamic. And the only people who don't understand this at this point are the bitter enders in the U.S. Congress and the American neocon commentariat. They just have no idea. And that is a recipe for collision, for collision. So here's, and I'll stop with this before we get to an analysis from geopolitical expert Brandon Weikert on where we are in this conflict and how we can get out of it and what the cost might be when we do.

36:06But this clip just really kind of says it all. So this is from Fox News, which was at one point, I guess, a broadly conservative back when that term had meaning, cable network. Familiar with it, of course. A lot of great people there. But it has become in the last year sort of a nonstop cheerleader for the most nihilistic kind of military action. Military action that has no assured positive outcome. Really, the point of but it's just to kill people apparently. Like what is the point? No one ever explains that, but you're a weakling and unpatriotic and probably a secret Muslim if you're not for it.

36:44I mean, it's literally, it is nihilism. You can't tell me why this is a good idea. You can only attack me for not getting on board with it. Okay. That's very dark. You never want to find yourself advocating for things like that, but they are. And because they are, and because it's the most important thing to the network for reasons that are not clear, all of a sudden every other issue is subsumed into that. It's not important at all. So you find yourself in a place where you have long-time conservative, not just cable news hosts, but figures, like very famous people, recognizable people, and doing this for 30 years, but in your bedroom for 30 years, telling you that what matters are the conservative values, and those would be, roughly in order, small government, lower taxes, entrepreneurship, family values, pro-life, you know, no castrating kids.

37:43All of a sudden you have people like that making common cause, in fact, not just common cause, but celebrating figures on the other side with whom they agree on nothing except the need for the United States to keep funding irrational, counterproductive, genocidal behavior in a foreign country because that's all that matters. So you wind up with a tableau like the one we're about to show you where you've got Sean Hannity commiserating with John Fetterman, who's very liberal on everything except Israel. And who knows even what liberal means now? But he's on the other side of every other issue except Israel, which for reasons either of cognitive impairment or campaign donations, he's decided is the only issue that matters.

38:34and they're looking right into the camera and telling you, yeah, any criticism of Israel is just Jew hate. And it means you're a bad American. This is the kind of clip that will be preserved in the museum of national decline at some point. Like how did this great country dissolve? Well, because the people went insane. The people with the most power went insane. They started saying things that make no sense at all. And this will definitely be in that exhibit. So here's Sean Hannity and John Fetterman. All right, let me ask this. Why the deep hatred for Israel? Why? Yeah, because, I mean, if you have such contempt for Israel, I mean, of course, you're also anti-American and you're anti-Western civilization and you seem anti-capitalism and the American way of life.

39:29i mean it's like so tempting to get literal okay so a socialist country which is israel not attacking him just saying founded by socialist on socialist principles it's not a free market country it's run by the government and the military it's like the opposite free market country it's pretty successful country you know for a bunch of reasons but if you don't support israel you're against capitalism and you're against america is there any other foreign nation to which this applies if you don't support Moldova if you don't support Estonia you don't support Guinea-Bissau you don't like America where are you in Namibia countries like equal in relative significance globally like they're not really players Israel's not really a player except to the extent that we imbue it with value because our politicians have been lobbied by them but like inherently why do we care about israel or guinea basau we don't but do you ever politician say where are you on guinea basau where are you on french guiana you got to get on board with french guiana put a french guyanese flag on your lapel or you hate america you're against capitalism you'd be like what you like you got a head injury pal like what lay off the psilocybin it's not not helping but says that with a straight face and then has the gall to say and this is not an attack on poor fetterman who is impaired or on poor hannity who was also impaired this is just a reminder of what reality is you're an enemy of western civilization okay now now you've roused me from my slumber I'm an enemy of Western civilization.

41:12So you're begging the question then, what is Western civilization? Well, it's a lot of things that emanate from Rome, Israel's ancient enemy, but let's just put it succinctly. At the core of this thing we call Western civilization, upon which our society is based, is the idea of justice. What is justice in the West, in this thing called Western civilization? Justice is the notion that we punish the guilty and we spare the innocent. and it is not simply an accident for which we're sort of sorry it is a grave offense against the idea of justice itself to ever punish the innocent and that's why we go through an elaborate process called the justice system to prevent doing that we don't have a justice system to make it easier to convict people we have a justice system to make it harder so terrified are we at the prospect of hurting the innocent that is the core idea of western civilization where does that idea come from.

42:06That idea comes from a Christian understanding of the human soul. The human soul, your soul, is co-equal with every other human soul because God created every human being. People in Western civilization don't think they are uniquely chosen by God and therefore exempt from universal rules. They don't believe that. They believe just the opposite. They believe that people in, yes, Guinea Bissau, well, maybe not welcome here to partake in our welfare state, but are nevertheless equal to us on the most basic moral level because they are human beings. And that's why we think called human rights. So that idea is the basis of Western civilization.

42:47And because it is, Western civilization is precluded from doing the thing that all tyrannies do, that uncivilized nations do, which is punish on the basis of bloodline. There is no blood guilt in Western civilization. There cannot be because it's a direct contradiction of the West's understanding of the human soul. You are different from your father and your mother and your ancestors going back however many thousand years because you are you. You are a distinct soul created by God. And you cannot be killed because you are related to people the murderer doesn't like. That is the most repugnant thing in this collective we call Western civilization.

43:28And that is the very thing that Israel embraces. So you can say whatever you want about Israel, and I've said honestly many times, great country in a lot of ways, charming, smart people, lots of great things. But the Israeli government has abandoned the central tenet of Western civilization, which is justice on an individual basis, and instead adopted an older and darker, and I would say evil standard, of blood guilt. So don't lecture me about Western civilization and tell me that if I don't defend Israel, I don't defend Western civilization. I oppose the policies of Israel precisely because I do defend Western civilization.

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46:22So we are honored to have him join us now. Brandon, thanks so much for coming on. So can you just start big picture and tell us, where are we now? Last time when we left the serial, we were on the verge of negotiating out this memorandum of understanding, this MOU. How is that going? Where are we? Well, we have to remember, well, first of all, it's going better, I think, than what we were doing about a week ago, which is shooting at everything. So that's a win. It's a low bar these days, but I take that as a win. But it's only 60 days. And the three parties involved, because remember, it's not a two-party issue.

47:08It's not just U.S. and Iran. If it were, I think we could probably get this thing wrapped up pretty quickly. The third party is, as you noted, Israel, and they're not really a party to the negotiations. And they don't perceive themselves, this is very important, as being bound by the negotiations that are ongoing. going. So the only way that they would really be restrained from, say, doing something to blow up this very tenuous, temporary right now, 60-day at most ceasefire would be if the president of the United States basically brought the hammer down on his counterparty in Tel Aviv and told them, we are going to cut you off if you do anything to meddle.

47:51And I can assure you that the Israeli government is looking to complicate this this process right now so where are we right now well we have not had a resumption of hostilities today that we are doing this show we had i think the highest number of ships go through the strait of hormuz since the the war really began the number I believe, I want to say was 43, which is high for post what was going on in the war. But I want your audience to remember that this is about, and I have the numbers here, just give me one second. This is about 20 to 30 % of normal pre-war capacity. What that means is the pre-war baseline for container and oil ships getting through the Strait of Hormuz was about 120 to 140 ships.

48:44That was around 100 million barrels of oil every week. We are nowhere near that right now. So there's a lot of irrational exuberance coming from Washington, D.C. because they got to spin this thing as best as they can. We're seeing a decline in the price of oil because of the mini glut. You see, a lot of ships were blocked from leaving the Strait of Hormuz the last two months, now that the Strait is somewhat reopened, they're leaving. And we're not really seeing a commiserate increase in ships coming to collect new oil. It's mostly outgoing. So until that changes, people like me are going to be on pins and needles.

49:29I think what's happening here with the price of energy going to about$72 a barrel, which is pre-war level and good for us, it's good for our wallets right now, that's a mini glut. And a lot of oil experts were anticipating this before the war really got going. Also, for the last two months, China basically pulled themselves voluntarily off the global market. They have the world's largest strategic petroleum reserve, 1.4 billion barrels of oil was in their SPR. So what they did was as soon as the Stratto Hormuz was shut down, they took themselves off the market. that is one of the reasons you've seen these sort of bizarre downturns when everybody was expecting the price to go up it's because china pulled themselves off the market when they come back onto the market and they will soon that's going to cause problems that's the civilian side of the story uh the military side tucker and feel free if you want me to stop just no i'm i'm learning thank you okay yeah well thank you and it's and it's come to this i have to wear glasses nowadays days, but the weapons depletion rate, this is all publicly available.

50:39I do not deal in classified information. I am a public person. I don't deal in stolen information because that is something that's been lobbed at me in recent weeks. So missile interceptors, about 50 % of the inventory of Patriot ballistic missile interceptors and 50, likely closer to 80 % of terminal high altitude area defense interceptors were expended in the course of the war over 1000 that's about a third of our entire stockpile of um tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended large quantities of the jasim missiles as well as pretty much the entire pre-war inventory of new precision strike missiles the prisms that were used also interestingly enough because we were told there was never any threat to our Navy.

51:31This is why, of course, they never really dared to go through the Strait Ormuz. The Navy reports that they expended large quantities of their SM-3 and SM-6 naval interceptors, which indicates to me, if I may conjecture here, that there must have been one hell of a fight over the security of our ships when the war was in its kinetic phase. So the White House was lying when they said that the ships were totally safe. Our ships were very much at risk obviously from these numbers furthermore uh there are now significant uh gaps in the supply chain for those naval defenders one last bit of data i'd like to deliver here uh the um i'm sorry that's the wrong one the chart here i have is for the prism we blew through our pre-war pre-war stock which was already low they're saying the best estimate will be it will be replenished by late this year the jasim air to surface missiles uh will probably be replaced middle of next year those sm3 sm6 navy defense missiles will take until about mid-2028 those patriot interceptors not until closer to 2030 the fad interceptors and the fads are the real important ones that's not going to come until probably 2030 uh and the tomahawks will not be replaced for another five years.

52:54So we better hope that the Chinese or some other area of interest is no longer requiring our assistance, because we have depleted ourselves, Tucker, and I will just add and conclude my little statement here with unfortunately, it is my assessment that this memorandum of understanding that might or may not lead to a longer deal. I'm very skeptical of that. I think we'll get a 60-day reprieve and then it'll be like the tariffs. It'll be every 45 days we're getting an extension. But I would just add that what we have agreed to, the Trump administration, and they didn't have a choice because the president already said we're going to run out of oil in four weeks.

53:33So he was up against a wall and good for him for doing this. But ultimately, this is a conditional surrender document. The United States started a war and it promptly lost. the Iranians have unfortunately strategically at the strategic level they have achieved victory and where I think this goes geopolitically is a post-American Middle East in which Israel is likely now the pariah state whereas before the war you'll remember even even after 10-7 the Abraham Accords were really still in effect and they were working Israel as sort of the center of this new U.S. backed order in the Middle East that's gone and there's now going to be a new Middle East and it's going to comprise and this is my friend Dr.

54:15Artamaweni this has been his thesis as well and I agree with him there's going to be five powers in the Middle East now it's going to be Saudi Arabia the Islamic Republic of Iran Pakistan with their nuclear umbrella the Egyptians second largest economy in Africa one of the best I think it's probably the best conventional military in the Muslim world and then Turkey with its very impressive industrial indigenous base. Remember, Jonathan Conricus, the former IDF spokesman at the JNS conference this last week, implied that the Israelis could not build an F-35 on their own. I would add that's true, but actually the Turks are proving with their new Khan fighter that they absolutely could on their own.

55:00They don't need the U.S. and NATO. They have a very proficient defense industrial base. Those Middle East powers, or greater Middle East powers, because obviously Pakistan Egypt and Turkey are not technically in the Middle East. But those greater Middle East powers are going to form the new post-American order. And, you know, where it goes from here really is up to really Mr. Netanyahu and his government, Tucker. The whole point of keeping a gun at home for self-defense is to defend yourself and your family, especially when you're not expecting a threat. You don't know when the threat may arise.

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56:49They can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18+. us. I mean, that is, as I've thought from really a couple weeks into this conflict, that is a disaster for Israel. And, you know, it's not my job to defend Israel. It has enough defenders in our country. But just objectively speaking, I don't think the outcome could be much worse strategically for Israel.

57:30So I don't think they're good stewards of their own future. I don't think they're wise. I don't think they're helping themselves. not their government their their government that's what i mean yeah yeah i knew i know there are about about 20 of israelis are not okay with what's going on yeah what's really surprising tucker is you know my colleague kieran andrew has been talking about this to me for for a long time is just how consistently supportive majority israelis are of the netanyahu policies even if they don't like netanyahu they're okay with what he's doing and i argue what he's been doing since 10-7 has put them in this position.

58:06Oh, yeah. No, it's truly, it's a disaster. And I think the vice president put it best when he said, you can't kill your way out of every problem. And that's a physics principle, really. It's like not even a judgment. It's just true. And so, but here's my question, like, how did they, so now you have the regional powers are all Muslim states, by the way, majority Muslim states, and they're all kind of hostile to Israel, and they have reason to be hostile to Israel. And Israel spent the last number of decades making bellicose noises at all these governments, assassinating people in their countries, basically treating them like animals.

58:44And now they're kind of in charge of one of the critical regions in the world. So where does that leave Israel? Well, they're going to be, basically the way we treated Iran for the last 47 years, the Israelis will now be treated that way. um and it is not because particularly the arab states woke up and said we're going to screw israel um you remember again the abraham accords were still being pushed by even saudi arabia behind the scenes oh i know until about october november of last year what happened the israelis decided to entreat uh with hamas and got their leadership to go or their negotiators to go to Qatar meet in Doha under diplomatic cover.

59:30The Israelis said they were sending their diplomats and what they ended up sending was a cruise missile into the building in Doha. And they ended up killing a Qatari security agent. They ended up wounding. They didn't even, tactically it was a disaster for them. They didn't even kill the targets. They ended up killing a bunch of low level guys from Hamas. The big guys survived. Then they came back even angrier go figure um but furthermore at that point that was the first time that israel had struck a gulf a gcc country uh which had been going along quite well with the abraham accords at that point since last november when those strikes occurred that was september september 9th was it september i'm sorry day before charlie kirk was killed charlie you're wow you're absolutely right it was September yes I apologize thank you for correcting me um but but it was in the fall of last year and the point is is that uh this shift occurred and a momentum began building in which all of the Arab states looked around and said okay uh it's not Iran that's crazier now it's actually the Israelis exactly and that's the key to understand it because all the Arab states for the most part, the governments at least, were agreeing with Israel, saying Iran's a bigger problem than anything we dealt with the Israelis.

1:00:49That flipped on its head almost instantly. And the Americans were, of course, stuck holding the bag because we gave the cruise missile. We've been providing diplomatic cover. We've been providing economic aid. Trump has been providing political cover for Netanyahu on a personal basis, leader to leader. He's the one begging the Neset for or pardons for Netanyahu and his top people. So the Arab states are looking around going, not only are the Israelis going to be a problem, but we got to get the Americans out of here now too. Exactly. And that is at play here because we lost a bunch of our bases, or rather they've been degraded, as the Pentagon keeps saying.

1:01:27Those bases are not coming back online in any meaningful sense, Tucker, because the Arabs know they have to get us out, at least the level that we're at, because otherwise they can't contain Israel. And now you're going to see a real flip from trying to contain Iran to now trying to contain Israel. And that's what I think is going to play out over the next five years. I don't know how that's going to play out. I think your analysis is spot on, very smart. And I hope people are listening to this. But I just wonder how it unfolds because Israel feels legitimately threatened. And you could say Israel has a very long history of hyping threats.

1:02:06and we heard Randy Fine invoke the Holocaust. Okay, settle down, Randy Fine. But this is a real threat. It's almost like all of their hyperbole became real. Like they are actually threatened. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's been fulfilled. So like if you have a country like Israel or really any country that feels Russia, that feels cornered, that's a very dangerous country. Yeah, well, no, No, certainly. And if you're a neighbor of Israel, you know, you're going to have to always be looking over your shoulder. But this is only going to compel the regional powers to align against Israel even more.

1:02:46The reason the Egyptians even were thinking about getting closer to Saudi and Pakistan and Turkey in this new alliance is because the Israelis woke up after 10-7 and started pushing all the Palestinian Arabs, trying to get them in Gaza to go to the Sinai Desert. and the egyptians are saying we have all these deals with you we've covered for you israel's wtf man like what are you doing and so you know this is part of the problem so you're i think i i think what you're getting at is and maybe i'm wrong is does this risk nuclear exchange or something i mean it's so it's too it israel's under too much pressure i don't think their leaders are thinking clearly at all i i know israelis who are thinking clearly you're right to say there is a percentage of the population that's like shocked by what their government is doing but the government is not thinking clearly at all to have some guy threaten 9-11 against the united states on twitter like this is there we're in a crazy stage i think of their history so like i'm just concerned that they're under too much yeah under too much pressure yeah no so you know there is a real chance that they will do something with nuclear weapons i wouldn't say though it is yet a probability um i think if if netanyahu is not in power i suspect even if it's a hard line leader which it probably will be they will probably play things a bit more sly they'll be a little bit more sly about it and um i think part of that is because they can't count anymore on america always having their back if they use a nuke that's pretty much it that's the final and i'm not saying they won't but i i just i'm not ready to say that is i thought that at the beginning of the war when everything just looked to be going so fast but i look now and it looks to me like both on some level the iranians have pulled back from some of their extreme rhetoric and while israel is really going hard against lebanon the fact is i don't yet know if they are ready to pull the nuclear trigger because that is it then um and i think that a lot of israelis tell themselves, look, we've always been the pariah.

1:04:56We've always been on the outside, on the periphery, and we'll just deal with that. And we'll be stronger. So that I hope is what the thought is, but it is still, yes, it is a higher probability or higher possibility, but I wouldn't say probable just yet that under these conditions, they would go nuclear. I saw this last year where the talking points from Israel's agents in the United States were rolled out about how Qatar was funding Hamas. Well, they were saying you were funded by Qatar. Yeah, right. Yeah, I was funded by Qatar. Yeah, I'm the one who's an agent of foreign power, so I just ignored it.

1:05:27But it's so insane. Every accusation is an admission. It's a projection, right. It really is. But they started to say Qatar's funding Hamas. I don't think most Americans are aware that Qatar sent money to Hamas at the request of Israel. Okay? That's right. They were doing a solid for Bibi Netanyahu. Who was taking a vig, by the way. Of course. he was taking a cut this is one of the reasons he was under investigation always his own government exactly so i knew this but i didn't want to say it because like no one would believe it sounds so crazy yes qatar sent money to hamas because israel why would israel want money to go to hamas i didn't want to get into it so i didn't say it but i knew it and then i watched as these propagandists started to convince themselves that qatar which is like the most moderate country in the world is somehow like the main sponsor of terror and the next thing you know they're bombing qatar in the middle of a negotiation which i agree with you is a was a pivotal moment in the history of that region and trump thought that too trump was completely outraged by it but he humiliated netanyahu remember exactly with the phone in the oval office and then he's like we're going to build a qatarri military base in idaho to like show you how much we love qatar and he actually does love guitar.

1:06:42I mean, they gave him a new plane. But my point is, I watched this process, which is familiar, I think, to all people, where you tell a lie, and then you convince yourself the lie is true, and you get so overwrought, believing your own lie, that you do something crazy. I guess that's the thing I'm worried about. Yeah, no, and that's certainly a possibility. Look, Israel's a very ideological state. You know, it's interesting, because I think you and I probably come from the same kind of ideological origin story and um i was always led to believe i wrote a book not long ago about about the threat of iran and it's this ideological crazy power if they get the nuke it's going to be suicide bombing with nukes it's the end and i you know you look at how they conducted themselves in this war tucker and again i hate that they beat us because i love america so I'm not happy that that.

1:07:32I agree. But they actually conducted themselves quite responsibly. The Iranian military did not go crazy. The Iranian military did not send suicide bombers to go blow up civilian. I mean, they didn't do the things I think you and I were taught to believe they would do. And that's a good thing, by the way. That's a very good thing because it means that they can be reasoned with on some level. Not that I'm saying I trust them. But, you know, they have self-interest, and that's a very powerful motivator here. And they're very smart about protecting their interests. The Israelis come across now as the ideological power, as the ones who might actually, I mean, look at this thing in Lebanon.

1:08:14Listen, Tucker, I know you mentioned in your commentary that, you know, they had taken half of the country. They actually took like, I think like 25 % maybe. but the the israeli defense force are running these 2006 tactics against a 2026 hezbollah force and it's having really devastating results for the idf it just this time a month ago you had the idf chief of staff telling publicly twice he said at the times of israel then he said it while he was talking to the i think the uh cabinet for netanyahu saying that the idf is on the brink of collapse if we don't get a massive surge of new recruits into the IDF in southern Lebanon.

1:08:56And the reason that they've been struggling is because they're using their Merkava main battle tanks to basically run up the gut, to basically go into these urban centers where they are basically, they can't maneuver, they can't work around the way they need to. And Hezbollah's waiting, they're lying in wait, and they've got these drones, and they've got these anti-tank guided munitions, just like the ukrainians had at the beginning of the of the war with russia and the russians were not prepared for that and that's why you had in the beginning such a large number of russian tanks getting annihilated it was because the ukrainians had figured out how to do this new form of anti-tank warfare the israelis watched all this they didn't learn any of it though they didn't learn a thing they've lost upwards possibly and it's very murky but they might have lost as many as 60 Merkava main battle tanks just because they keep running these things up the gut not using them on the periphery of battle as that's how you're supposed to use them now I had a long conversation in December with the great Danny Davis Colonel Davis and a former tank commander and he was in the in the armored infantry and he sort of walked me through in great detail what tanks need to be or how it takes need to be used today in modern combat the Israelis know how they're supposed to be used, they won't use them.

1:10:12And so this idea that they're even really being effective, I don't actually think, again, on the strategic level, they're really having the desired impact. They're blowing a lot of stuff up. They're killing a lot of people, but they're not actually translating that into like a real political end state. And what is the political end state? I have been told by former security officials in Israel, and this is really a bad way to put it, but they call it the Gaza model. That's what they want for Southern Lebanon. They want to create what they call a basically a desolate security buffer between their Northern tier region and the Southern component of Lebanon.

1:10:51That's what they say. But even that, they can't do it because the way that they're fighting this is completely not tethered to the way you're supposed to fight the modern war as the ukrainians have shown us when it comes to tanks and the russians now um so i this a lot of myths have been broken here and that makes the israeli political establishment you're right that makes them more desperate because the myth of the idf as this you know they punch above their weight etc that's really being dispelled in real time everybody sees it and it's it's setting off alarm bells uh among israel leaders and they don't know what to do.

1:11:30All they know is to keep pressing the gas pedal and expanding. So, you know, it could get very, very bad here, you know, if this thing continues as it is. Inflation makes credit card statements particularly scary. You work 40, 50 hours a week just to buy groceries and gas, things you used to be able to afford without thinking that much about it. Then the banks charge you 20 % interest. If the system is designed to keep you underwater, it's working. But there's another option. Our friends at American Financing are doing something the big banks despise. They are helping people. Mortgage rates in the fives, supporting the American dream of homeownership, and they're showing homeowners how to take their hard-earned equity to wipe out high-interest debt.

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1:13:29An actual human being explains what's happening inside you and builds a personalized plan, which includes hormone optimization, peptide therapy, targeted supplements. So don't settle. Go to joyandblokes.com slash Tucker. Use the code Tucker for 50 % off your lab work and 20 % off all supplements. That's joyandblokes.com slash Tucker. use the code Tucker, 50 % off labs, 20 % off supplements. Join blokes. Get your edge back. And I think it was widely known. I mean, I remember an American Marine officer 25 years ago telling me who'd done a lot of joint exercises with the IDF and had friends in the IDF and, you know, wasn't against Israel.

1:14:09I thought it was pro-Israel actually, but he's like, ah, they're not that impressive at all. And they spend a lot of time maintaining their reputation and sort of less time becoming impressive. And so I think people knew that, but now everybody knows it. And they also know it, I hate to say this, but about the US military. Like if we have all these aircraft carriers, which are the most expensive war device ever built, and we can't use them to open a straight that's not that long, what are we doing? So I don't know if you're familiar, but one of my calling cards is I am one of the world's biggest critics of the aircraft carrier.

1:14:52So I'm right with you here. I am the main battle tank, the aircraft carrier. You could make the argument they're not quite obsolete. I think in the case of the tank, I think Danny Davis made that case in December to me very well. It's just you have to use them differently. But the carrier, the carrier, my God, it is so not right for the kinds of wars that we're fighting today. it cannot provide it can't defend itself so maybe it can launch some of their planes but we saw this with what was it operation prosperity garden against the houthi rebels where basically the houthi rebels chased uncle sam out of the red sea and we have not gone back there since 2024 uh i talked to a destroyer a guy who served on a destroyer during operation prosperity garden and he said that he has in his entire career never seen anything like the kind of hell that the Houthis were giving the U.S.

1:15:48Navy and that was the Houthis now we're talking again about the Iranians which okay they're not Russia or China not yet but but they clearly are a competent military force they clearly understand strategy and tactics and they clearly employ those tactical capabilities with very significant effect. They kept us out of the Strait of Hormuz, Tucker. I know for a fact, I'm not going to say how, but I know for a fact that we were moving forces for a much bigger operation into the region. And that whole thing was stunted because partly of the way in which we could not penetrate into the Strait of Hormuz reliably.

1:16:30And if we couldn't even send a ship for like a freedom of navigation type operation, there was no way in hell the emeralds we're going to risk sending an entire amphibious lander full of marines to land on karg island or to take kashem or whatever insanity the trump administration was spewing at that time i would also add there is clearly a shake-up or a breakdown going on at the highest levels of our uniform military command structure i bet there is and that's not being widely reported um go figure uh but i will i will say you know everybody's focused on the reflecting pool in washington dc uh i think it was donahue who resigned today the head of um uh i think it was africom uh he resigned today fred kotcher who we spoke about previously when i was on the show i've noticed he's not being charged with being a leaker uh he's actually being allowed to to leave quietly it looks like uh that to me indicates that kotcher was speaking for more than himself I think that he was speaking for Dan Cain when he leaked that conversation between Dan Cain and Trump on the eve of the war on February 27th, which indicates to me there is a significant amount of uniformed military leaders who are looking around and they're saying, this ain't working.

1:17:48We're not being heard. We're GTFOing out of here. It does seem like that needs to happen. I don't understand how the United States could be the U.S. military. could be so totally and obviously unprepared for modern drone warfare, having watched it in different parts of the world. We helped create it. Well, I'm aware of that. Yeah. And I think we did create it, really. Well, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, the modern iteration of it in Afghanistan, and I remember it very well. It was October 2001. But anyway, the point is, I just don't get that. All these smart people, biggest budget on the planet, biggest budget in history, and that you're not prepared to beat the Houthis to keep the Red Sea open, that should occasion deep soul-searching punishment of the guilty, by the way.

1:18:39And it hasn't. And instead, we've got a bunch of aircraft carriers in production still. What is going on? Well, they're in production, not being produced very quickly because our shipyards are a sclerotic mess. But what's going on is the bubble, right? It's not only protects the people in D.C. that you and I lived among for a long time and not only protects them from reality, it also protects them from accountability. Yes. Looking back on 9-11, whatever people think may have happened, you know, to cause 9-11, I certainly have my ideas. the fact is nobody was held accountable for the very blatant security failures ever except for like you know richard clark who whether you like him or not he did kind of warn us it was coming and he was the one and you know i know you know he was the one that got you know so but anyway um you know nobody's really ever held accountable that's the whole system in dc it is one of protecting you know cya you know cover your a you know that's that's that's the whole logic and it's all political and they're going to protect each other and close ranks that's why after iraq by the way all of the generals remember frank's the day that the fighting in baghdad we got baghdad in 03 the day that we did that he put in his resignation papers and him and his top generals resigned on or retired on moss to go write their memoirs because they knew the insurgency was going to come and the whole thing was going to go upside down and they didn't want to be blamed so that's your that's sort of what you're dealing with in dc whether it's the uniformed or non-uniform people and so you know the only way this is going to change tucker is if congress actually gets off its rear end and starts holding the military accountable why haven't there been committee hearings yet where where is the people in congress demanding after action briefings demanding accountability for the very clear failures i heard seth moulton who i know is kind of a left wing you know he's kind of nutty but seth moulton to a guy i admire the hell out of elbridge colby back in march he really held bridges feet to the fire though not personally but for the organization uh the pentagon's failure to account for the fact that we were going to burn through all the munitions that we went through you know we need more of that and we're not getting it and that's the sort of thing that will only ever bring accountability uh and they don't want to do it because fundamentally everybody's somehow benefiting from the existing system right and it's it's such a recognizable syndrome where you're destroyed by flattery not criticism it's the people who claim they love you who encourage your worst impulses it's the what they call it like aa world the enablers that's right yeah you got a drinking problem but it's like it's not that bad you know let's go get loaded those are the people who kill you and it's all these members of congress and fox news flag pin wearers who are like we've got the greatest military in the world the president says that all the time and it's like yeah it's a great military great people amazing people especially in the ranks yeah however like they need to be held to the highest standards that's why they're the greatest and when you drop the standards they become less impressive like well they become jack king i mean you know listen to him on fox and it's no one is listening to so shameful.

1:21:59Well, yeah, you know, or, or, or your friend Jesse Kelly, who it's, or Jesse Waters rather, uh, who, uh, is tweeting out all these insane things about how much winning we're doing. And I wish that were the case, but, uh, you know, North Korea wants their propaganda back because this is, um, this is the greatest strategic defeat of the United States. I think maybe ever. Thankfully the casualties, the U S casualty rate was not in the many thousands. That is a blessing. Yes. That's also though because the way the war was fought, it was mostly targeting our bases. So a lot of our people thankfully were near hospitals and a lot of our people were able to, when they did get wounded severely, they were able to receive very top quality treatment either with military assistance or the locals had good hospitals they were able to get our people to and they were treated in that very important golden hour uh when one is injured and they were i mean that is a blessing uh so in that way we can be very thankful but ultimately at the strategic level which our military leaders should be worried about at the strategic level this is this is the end of america's hegemony that's it those days are done that's right the charles krauthammer's beloved unipolar moment uh completely devastated uh pat buchanan has proven right more and more every day when he challenged krauthammer on that in the 90s you remember that i'm sure better than me um but um you know ultimately where i think this is going on the global level tucker and again feel free to cut me off um but where i'm going with this is it's looking to me like the transition from unfortunately u.s being sort of the dominant global power to a multipolar system in which really China is sort of the rising dominant power.

1:23:56That's just been expedited. That's been expedited. And, you know, I keep hearing from people in Trump's orbit that, well, really, this was 5D chess because we were going, we collapsed Venezuela and we took that offline for China. And we went after Iran, which is another big energy source for China. And we took that offline and they're going to be on their knees. Well, as it turned out, like I said at the beginning, China was more than well prepared for this. In fact, I would argue that the Chinese, the reason they voluntarily divorced themselves from the global market and decided to rely solely on their very impressive SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, is because it was a proof of concept for them.

1:24:35Because I think Beijing knows the next move by America, if this is part of some grand, bizarre, crackpot plan, the next move will be eventually to go after the Strait of Malacca. and to try to cut China off. And they are preparing themselves for surviving that. America's 250th anniversary is here, and it presents a great opportunity to consider why our national culture matters. Being an American is not something to be ashamed of. We should all be proud to live here. And the same goes for being a Christian. This July 4th, the Hallow app, which is the best prayer app ever, is launching the American Heroes Challenge.

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1:25:51We loved it. You will love it. I don't think there's any appetite for that. I hope not. This is not 5D chess. This is drunk.com. No, this is one-dimensional checkers. Exactly. Not even. It doesn't rise to the level. And I say that with sadness. I will say, I think, I don't think I know that the administration has gotten religion on this. They understand it. The consequences of proceeding are so severe that not only are they committed to ending this, but they are turning against, the president himself is turning against the people who advocated for it. I guess this was all inevitable, wasn't it?

1:26:26Yeah, I mean, we'll see. We'll see how deep that goes. Well, I don't know. As of this morning, at least in this country. Yeah. That's my next question to you. Yeah, okay. what do you do actually to restrain israel which is the impediment to settling this but it i would say domestically trump has totally soured on mark levin not guessing he has on mark i don't know how you were ever sweet on mark well i totally i the whole thing was was like a deranged episode it was like that you know weird affair you had like you know what i mean like i can't believe i ever found that girl attractive like what was i thinking yeah and the takeaway from those experiences in the life of a man is don't always trust your own judgment like i have the capacity to go crazy but anyway that's right so i do think they or he again i don't think i know is now like actively angry at the people who helped convince him to do this but that's not the same as getting this done getting the mou hammered out and translated into an enduring peace what does the administration need to do to achieve that do you think well the first thing is trump needs to stop having natalie text out these insane things about how he's going to kill the negotiators.

1:27:37I mean, that would be the first, you know, just, just putting the, going for the low hanging fruit here, you know? So first that, then we, then we would probably say, Mr. President, you really need to use this as an opportunity, a teachable moment as Obama used to lecture us about a real teachable moment here. We can really use this as a window to actually implement the very brilliant, and I know you know that I supported this, national security strategy memo from last year, which said, we weren't going to do any of this. Nobody read it, but it was great. Nobody read it. So Mark Levin did his siren song from Fox News and dragged us in.

1:28:24But I would say that this is a real opportunity because the Arabs don't want us around anymore. I mean, they want to do business with us, which is great. That's fine. Because I don't know if I want to do business with us after this chat show. But they want to do business with us still for the most part. So this is a real opportunity for us to create sort of a long-term exit strategy from the whole geopolitical quicksand. Let the locals figure out their own mess. They know the neighborhood better. They'll figure it out. By the way, Big Brother always being around for Israel is the absolute worst thing for Israel because it creates this sort of, we talk about moral hazard when we talk about bailouts.

1:29:03Well, in this case, it's moral hazard in a geopolitical sense because the Israelis think we're always going to bail them out. And we can't do that anymore because I just told you we depleted all of our systems as well. Oh, by the way, I meant to tell you this fun fact. I was told not long ago by a little birdie that actually the Israelis were stunned by how many of our defensive munitions we expended on their behalf because the Israelis didn't expend anywhere near as many of their critical defensive munitions defending their own cities and their own country. They couldn't believe the Americans even let the Iranians attack American territory or American facilities in the Arab states.

1:29:43And we sent all that stuff to Israel. So the Israelis didn't even use anywhere near the level of munitions. You know why? Because we're all Mike Huckabee. It's like our leaders love Israel more than Israel loves itself. It's like it reminds me of the George Floyd thing. I'll never forget video of like some liberal white lady washing the feet of a black woman. Wasn't that an FBI agent? Why are you washing my feet? Like, this is weird. The black ladies, the white liberals are like, I love you. You're holy. And the black lady's like, oh, you're freaking me out. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right.

1:30:15And that's exactly what we're seeing here play out. So the first thing I would say is this is an opportunity to pull out and never go back. Pull out right now. Never go back. in the process, get on the phone with Bibby and explain to him a multi-point plan for stopping sending the aid that we've been sending. We are not going to engage anymore in intelligence sharing at any level that we've been doing. We are not, by the way, there's, I can reference a bunch of former CIA guys and one former U.S. Army intelligence officer that I know who told me that when he was in Iraq, he was charged with basically dealing with a certain area of the Sunni triangle in 04, 05.

1:31:00And he said that basically, hey, there was a group of Mossad operating here, and they were interrupting and interfering with our missions to try to stop Al-Qaeda in Iraq from doing whatever the hell they were doing. And I said, you know, I asked him, I go, well, what do you think was the reason? He goes, I'm not even going to get into that because I don't lose my pension so um you know we're dealing with not you know a non-ally ally fighting a non-war war with a non-cease-fire cease-fire right now so it's all very sort of you know nihilistic but wait can i just ask you to back up for a sec and and explain a little more deeply what you think that comment meant about wassad operating in iraq in the sunni triangle i think that they had people on the ground and we you know this is me now just sort of speculating based on that this is not okay um so my speculation is this was a few years before isis really got i mean before the the syrian civil war really got going but remember there was a whole build-up before it even popped off um and one of those build-ups was we let out all of the al-qaeda and iraq fighters from camp bucca which was a very nasty facility uh along the syrian border uh all those guys ended up going back into syria and they became basically the nucleus of al-nusra front and isis and that basically was our shock troops against assad and we armed them with the arms that we got from qaddafi through benghazi which is what gazi really was about exactly and the turks were running it was the rat line yeah so so basically i can't help but to wonder if the reason massad or israeli intelligence was on the ground in that particular area of the country of iraq during that time is because they were doing something to try to shape uh what would eventually become sort of the nucleus of the attack on assad because we know that seven nations in seven years or whatever the quote from general clark was right we know there was some grand plan originally that the neoconservatives paul wolfowitz and the clean break memo guys all concocted that would have seen us going after i mean i was told by somebody who was there that in 2004 john bolton and dick cheney were trying to convince bush to bomb assad in 04 um so i think this is somehow that story is somehow related to what, because we know there was a buildup before suddenly all these things just popped off in Syria.

1:33:39There was part of a plan. William Van Wagenen talks a lot about things like this in his wonderful book, Creative Chaos. Highly recommend your audience. William's a friend of mine and he's in the region actually, a very insightful guy. But he, you know, there's a lot of people that can get deeper into this than I will. But fundamentally, I do believe that that there was an Israeli, however small footprint, notably in Western Iraq. And they were doing something, I think, probably related to what we ultimately saw play out in Syria. That would not surprise me. And that would explain why there was all of a sudden this overnight consensus in the US Congress throughout Washington, really, that, quote, Assad must go.

1:34:19And a guy who had been celebrated in the Western press - Nancy Pelosi shook hands with him, remember? Of course, and why wouldn't you? He was a religious minority in his own country who protected religious minorities, including - And an ophthalmologist, too. She's no dummy. London trained with a very attractive multilingual wife and the whole thing. It's the Levant. It's like a moderate thing, but protected the ancient Christian communities of Syria. And then all of a sudden, in one day, it was like, no, no, the real problem is Assad, and we need to blame a fake nerve gas attack on him Yeah, there's also a Russia thing.

1:34:57We were, and I talked about this in my last book, but there was, I know that there was a group of, shall we say thinkers in DC who had been pushing this idea that we needed to roll back Russia's warm water ports after the Cold War. One of those smaller ports, but very important for their Navy was Tartus. And the idea was you're going to have to get rid of Assad to push back the Russian influence there. So there was also some connectivity there with some of these globalists after the Cold War. So you had that sort of weird fusion of Islamist terrorists, anti-Russia stuff, Israel, Turkey. So it's kind of weird, you know, polyglot admixture of imponderables.

1:35:43But there they were. Of all the most dedicated opponents of civilization finding each other. Of America, ironically. Of America, right. No, I know. It doesn't surprise me at all. So you said at the outset that you're skeptical that this MOU and negotiations ongoing in Switzerland will lead to a durable peace. Why? Yeah. Well, I think that the three parties are still not quite on the same page. Like I said, I think if Trump, the Trump team and the Iranians kind of could do their own thing, I think probably they might be able to get a more durable deal. I think how this is going to play out is the model is going to be very similar to the tariffs, where it was sort of like every 45 days, we're just going to keep extending.

1:36:22We'll keep extending, you know, for some of these things with the tariffs. I just don't think that, I think that the Americans know that if they really do walk away from the Strait of Hormuz, if you look at what's going on right now, and the Strait of Hormuz has really become the center of gravity here. If you look at what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz, Marco Rubio and his gang are all saying, you know, it's not even possible. Nobody would ever toll the Strait of Hormuz. Well, the Turks toll the Turkish Straits. So, I mean, that alone is, you know, sort of ridiculous when you hear that. The Montreux Convention works very well and has since 1936.

1:37:03There's no reason why we couldn't figure out some new way to make everybody happy there. But anyway, I think as long as you have those voices who are in the presidency or mixurating these crazy ideas, I just think that you're always going to have sort of this tension where I think that the president will always be one foot in, one foot out. And that's that's not good. We don't need that right now. We need to just get out. So I'm just very skeptical. I am a natural skeptic, though, Tucker, I should say. I'm skeptical of many things. Me too. um so that's just my background but but i also think the israelis are the real wild card and the fact of the matter is look they've got they've got a cluster of dolphin class submarines with nuclear tip cruise missiles likely sitting off the coast of iran right now um you know what's to stop them i mean you're not wrong to bring up that possibility if they really think that this whole thing's going to go pear-shaped what's to stop them from just saying f this we're to try to do it our way the way we wanted to do so this is why i'm there's just so many different competing interests the iranians are never going to let go of the straight of hermuz and i don't know if trump is going to be okay with that they are going to start tolling so the the the the 60 days is what we have by the way the iranians have the first 30 days to reopen the straight fully do you really think the iranians are going to reopen everything immediately no they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna drag this out because they want to make sure the americans are going to hold up there under the bargain and we never have so far so the iranians are going to drag this out that's going to then get us to day 31.

1:38:39we will be reaching bottom barrel of our strategic petroleum reserve uh gary vogler explained this to me on my twitter page recently and he's an oil expert but he explained that salt caverns where our oil is held basically the oil is tainted there and the deeper you go into those things, the more tainted and the less usable the oil becomes. So basically, they're saying officially, the EIA says that we have 340 million barrels remaining now. I think it's probably of usable, closer to 100 million barrels. And if we can't get the straight reopened and the Arab production back up and running, which every expert I've spoken to says it's going to take weeks probably months under the best conditions to restart arab production for a variety of reasons um that means that the iranians not letting up on the strait of hermuz fully right now that is going to create shortages complications uh here in the united states because we're hitting bottom barrel uh and so this is going to compound and create i think greater political pressure on trump uh and i think that that's that's going to cause a lot of problems for maybe not getting a full-time resolution but maybe i'm wrong i'm happy to be because i would love to see us just done with this whole thing it after the midterms and when you know there's a new political reality that's measurable because there will be at that point um yeah i mean that's the upside of elections whether they're real or not they establish a new baseline of where we are and what voters want right no it's true or and even if they're not real i could guarantee you they're not going to rig it in favor of trump i don't know if trump's deluded himself into thinking that but uh it will not happen i've lost track of what i think but anyway here's the point wilderness of mirrors i i don't see the pre-march status quo politically surviving where 95 of members of congress whatever over 90 of members take money from a pack or some version of aipac where every member of congress says you know unthinkingly i support israel they're our greatest ally like i just don't see that but maybe i'm wrong but i just don't see how that survives this moment i i i can't imagine it serve i think this is sort of the height of it and it's going to all now be downhill because even if you take all of the boomers and this is a generational thing you take all the boomers in both parties who support the sort of the status quo let's face it they're not going to be around much longer.

1:41:16I mean, I hate to speak that way, but inevitably soon it's going to change. And the next generation is much more skeptical of Israel. And, you know, some of them are, some of them are anti-Semites. There's no doubt there are definitely anti-Semites out there, but most of the people who are skeptical are skeptical with good reason. They're skeptical because they recognize there is a delineation between American interests and Israel interests. And when they eventually rise to power in Congress, this new generation in both parties i think i think there's a reason that israel's trying to basically permanently integrate aid uh in this current national defense authorization act and the current intelligence authorization act i think it's because their their allies know that in another 10 years it's it's a totally different ball game for israel they're not going to be getting the kind of support i don't know that it could take 10 years i don't know they might have 10 years but i got it So Tom Cotton is the driving force behind the idea of giving up the sovereignty of our intel agencies to a foreign country.

1:42:17He's also, as far as I know, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the sitting U.S. senator. That's treason, obviously. I don't know his motive for that. I have some guesses. But can that continue? can you have the chairman of the senate intel committee demanding that we have mandatory intel sharing with a foreign pretty obviously hostile country that's that's bonkers it is bonkers but it's just crazy enough uh where the world we're living in tucker um yeah tom cotton uh uh, he, he's clearly not speaking for himself and, um, you know, so I think that he will continue to push this as long as he's in that position.

1:43:05Um, and I think he will continue to be in that position until Pete Hegseth is gone from the Pentagon, because I think the ultimate plan is to put him in, or at least it was to replace, switch out Pete with, uh, with Tom cotton um that's not an upgrade i'm sorry no no maybe an iq upgrade but it's not maybe he washes his hands more uh but uh um but i think that cotton will continue to push this and do i think that it will go forward you know they already passed the senate version it's now got to go through the next next round um this is why they're doing this now is because this is the last shot for them and i think that tom cotton's motivations are not his own and i don't want to get too deep into that but i think that tom yeah yeah and i think that there are many more and i think the fact that he and graham and all these other people i think the fact that they're continue to be so publicly you know supportive of these moves indicates still how much maneuvering room they still have right now i also think it's interesting though um you know cotton has been really pushing hard to basically cancel or end the DNI, the director of national intelligence, that whole office.

1:44:20And this is something that after 9-11, a lot of intelligence professionals looked back and said, look, we don't need the DNI. It gets in the way, blah, blah, blah. The Republicans and Democrats both never wanted to get rid of it. Now he wants to get rid of it. I think it's just because he's worried another Tulsi might one day be put in permanently to the DNI who might actually uncover a lot of the nefariousness that our people have been up to in the intelligence world. And so he wants to neuter that capability and return it to the director of central intelligence. And not just our people, but people with whom we are, quote, allied.

1:44:55I mean, it was Tom Cotton who expressed, I mean, this is a fact, he's denied it, but it's a fact, that shortly into this administration, he expressed concern that all the JFK files would be released well that's not you know he doesn't care it's an act of congress uh well right it's and later i mean it was an executive order but like tom cotton's like whoa why are we doing that and that's of course to cover for a foreign country so that's like crazy behavior well it is look it is it's treasonous and he's not the only one and also i think that this war powers vote i think from what a day or two ago in the senate i actually don't think that was anybody standing on principle um i think what that was was a quiet message to trump uh you remember in the last week trump pulled clayton's nomination for dni clayton is the guy you know that tom cotton lindsey graham and all the neocons wanted to replace tulsi and for whatever reason trump nominated him probably because Susie nominated him.

1:46:04And he now has Bill Palti, who, whatever people think of him, he is going to just salute and gut all of these people because he doesn't know anything that's going on in DNI. He's a real estate guy, but he's going to go in there. He's going to kill everything. He's going to drain that particular part of the swamp. And then also Trump is trying to get the SAVE Act tied and FISA reauthorization tied to all of this. I think the War Powers Act was the Senate telling Trump, we can get you, do not interfere with us. And I think that wing of the Senate is the neoconservative wing that wants FISA reauthorized, that wants to see the SAVE Act not passed.

1:46:46And ultimately, I don't think these things are going to get passed, by the way, and wants to see someone like, I think it's Clayton from the SEC, or from the Southern District of New York. They want to see that guy in there. And of course, that guy for your audience may not know this but he was the guy that effed up supposedly by accident the epstein file release yep or last year so we have another epstein class uh being promoted by the neocons as the new dni they prefer him over bill pulte so it's the agenda is more spying on americans there is no fourth amendment no voter id because why would we want secure elections than voters would have a say, and energy prices that drive people into poverty.

1:47:32And all of this seems aimed at the American population. Certainly these are decisions made without reference to what people want. No one wants any of this. You're sounding a lot like my dear friend Michael Yan, who's been saying this is actually a war on the American people. It's so obvious. And don't forget, the Strait of Hormuz closure, one-third of the world's agricultural-based supplies, that's cut off. and we are in the dead of planting season. And what's going to happen now here in the United States, as well as elsewhere, it's going to be worse elsewhere, but it's going to be bad here. We in the United States here, not this year probably, because we're still running off reserves from last planting season, but next year, the delayed impact of not having planted enough because we didn't have enough urea fertilizer, we're going to be talking about severe shortages in the agricultural sector of baseline goods that every American needs.

1:48:25You've also now, again, channeling Michael here, the screw worm, which is a highly devastating to crops and livestock parasite. We had gotten it out of North America about a century ago. Now, in the last three years, it's popped up again because it supposedly was brought up with all the illegal immigration. They basically brought in a bunch of, by accident, supposedly contaminants and whatnot, and the screw worm larva was one of them. And now they're finding them in Texas and the cattle there. And that's very bad. So I think they found some in Florida, Central Florida recently as well. The point is, is that all the stuff that we as Americans take for granted, abundant food, affordable groceries, energy, all of this stuff is being denied to us on some level.

1:49:16It's being complicated in our ability to get that. and it's being done because of policy it's not being done because there's an actual shortage no it's being done because of policy either war or whatever but remember the war was a war of choice it's not like the iranians attacked us so all of this is certainly you start getting into a very dark place uh tucker and i know i've certainly gone down don't don't let my sunny disposition confuse you i i've certainly gone down i'm very blessed i have a beautiful family and and so i'm I'm very happy in my personal life, but, but you know, I talk about some pretty bleak things and you can start to see the darkness in human hearts and particularly our leaders and particularly our leaders.

1:49:58Yeah. I have some thoughts that I'm not going to express because that's dark enough, but I know, I hope you will come back and it's just, it's great. Anytime. Get your analysis. I learned, I just learned a lot. So Brandon. Well, thank you. Thank you. Great to see you. God bless. God bless. That's it for us. We'll see you next Wednesday. Thank you. being cool