John Mearsheimer: Trump’s Fight With Netanyahu, Israel’s Big Mistake and the Future of Iran & Russia

US Central Command announced just moments ago that  the American and Israeli militaries are commencing   with strikes on Iran. These strikes are reported  to be planned to continue for the next several   days. In fact, this may well develop into another  phase of a full-scale war, a hot war, kinetic war,   people dying, bombs dropping, missiles flying.  And on one level, this is not surprising if you   haven't been checking in on the progress of our  war with Iran. But if you have been sporadically   reading headlines about where we are and where  this is likely to go, you may be a little bit   confused because we were just told the other day  that a deal, the president of the United States   told us that a deal with Iran is imminent any  moment now. We've been hammering out the details.   Our crack diplomatic team has been traveling back  and forth to Pakistan and we're very, very close.   That turns out It's not true. That is, and we  counted, the 38th time the president of the United   States has announced since March 23rd an imminent  deal with Iran. And like the other 37 times,   this one turns out to be completely untrue for  whatever reason. And we are back to bombing Iran.   And Iran has pledged to respond not by bombing the  United States because they can't, but by hitting   our allies in the region, the six Gulf states  who are our closest allies in the Middle East,   and they've almost all of them have sustained  tremendous damage, in some cases very severe   damage to military and civilian infrastructure,  and they'll continue to do that. So, this is  

escalating. The war is back on despite repeated  promises that it was over, that we'd already won.   We could play you a lot of clips. No point really  in doing that because it's depressing. We could   play you all 38 announcements of an imminent  deal. Again, you get the point. But we can't   resist playing just one from about 6 weeks ago.  This is the president of the United States saying   that victory is already ours and we're all really  only hanging around to increase the magnitude of   the victory. Here's President Trump. We've already  won, but I want to win by a bigger margin. But   we have we already we have destroyed their navy,  destroyed their air force, destroyed all of their   uh if you look at their anti-aircraft equipment,  their radar equipment, their leadership,   their leadership is destroyed. Uh we've destroyed  everything. So, it's hard to know which of those   details is accurate or not because there has been  really since February 28th when this began a total   news blackout on the details of this war. We don't  know how many Americans have been killed. We don't   know how many have been injured. We don't know how  they were killed and injured. We really don't know   anything beyond what we read on the internet  or in press releases. And in case after case,   that has turned out to be untrue. So there really  has never been a war of this magnitude with this   little factual coverage supplying the public  with usable information about how it's going.  

So we don't really know. We can take some of  that at face value. The United States military   is formidable. It's huge. Has a budget of over a  trillion dollars a year. So we can we can bet that   tons of running assets have in fact been destroyed  over the last several months. But fundamentally we   can conclude that Iran has not lost this war. In  fact, by the only measure that really matters,   Iran is winning the war. What's that measure?  Well, of course, it's the ability to control the   Persian Gulf, the eastern aperture of the Persian  Gulf, the Straight of Hormuz, now famous. And as   of right now, Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz.  It did not when this war began. Now it does. And   so, what do we learn from this? Well, we learn  that President Trump is not a great diplomat.   He's overselling this. Like, it's an all you can  eat buffet in Atlantic City. Oh, it's going to be   the best. And so, it's tempting to kind of lay all  of the blame at Trump's feet. And on one level,   it is all his fault. He decided to do this.  Whatever pressures he faced, it was his decision.   And he has oversold America's position in this.  and he is in some very real way not good at this.   But that would be to minimize the profound nature  of this moment. What we're really learning is not   simply that Trump is a spotty commander-in-chief  and certainly no diplomat and obviously not a   dealmaker. If you announce a deal 38 times and  it doesn't materialize, you're not a dealmaker.  

What we're beginning to understand, unfortunately,  for the rest of us, are not just the limits of   Trump, but the limits of American power. That's  what we're actually learning. How limited the   United States is in what it can do and how it can  project its will abroad. And a lot of Americans,   particularly if you grew up came of age over  the last 30 years when the United States had   really unrivaled power globally, global hegemony,  it was in charge. It was the lone superpower up   until maybe 10 years ago and in the minds of many  in Washington it remains the lone superpower. You   imagine that the US government could just kind  of affect outcomes by articulating them. Say   it out loud and it becomes true because it has  the biggest and famously best military in global   history. But despite having that military, despite  aircraft carriers that cost $120 billion start   to finish to put in the water, the United States  military has not been able to open that straight   to shipping to the rest of the world to global  commodities in months. And there is no promise   that we'll be able to. So we have first and  foremost learned the limits of American military   power. There are some things we just can't do. And  you would have thought we'd be able to do them.   Iran, fewer than 100 million people, primitive  backward theocracy that everyone makes fun of,   globally reviled as a medieval state. The US  military could not force Iran to do one thing.  

Open up a narrow waterway. So, our military  power has limits that a lot of us didn't   appreciate until February 28th. Our economic  power has limits that a lot of people didn't   fully understand. It's a little confusing after  hearing for decades that the United States has   one of the world's largest oil reserves and by far  the most sophisticated oil extraction technology,   every oil producing country in the world uses  American technology to get the oil out of the   ground and the gas. It's a little confusing to  learn, but it's true. It turns out that despite   having energy independence, the United States  is not at all energy independent and gas is   now more expensive in your town because of this  war. That does that make sense? Well, yeah. If   you understand the true nature of the US economy,  which is globalized, the United States economy,   like every other economy on the globe, is linked  to the rest of the world and dependent on the rest   of the world. And so while conceptually the US  may have enough oil and gas to meet its own needs,   in real life the price of Brent crude set on the  global market determines the price of gasoline   in your town. Which is another way of saying Iran  has massive power over the United States economy.   Who knew that? We spent decades hearing about  how Iran was a military threat. Somehow this   sanctioned backward country was going to nuke us  for reasons that were never exactly clear because  

they hate our freedoms. But we thought of Iran,  most of us who listen to the media thought of   Iran purely in military terms. Iran is crazy.  Iran is heavily armed. Iran is a theocratic   Shia death cult and they want to kill us and we  should worry about Iran's military power. Well,   here, according to the president, we've eliminated  a lot of Iran's military power. It's air force and   navy. Who knew they had those? But they're gone  in any case, according to him. And Iran is still   exercising power over the United States, not just  because it's slamming our enemies with drones and   missiles, but because it is affecting the price of  energy in our country thousands of miles away. And   that illustrates a really important truth which is  the United States is not independent on any level   economically because the United States is part of  a global economic system that the United States   promoted and benefited from in some ways for many  decades. So we are ins snared by globalization.   There's kind of no way out of it at least in the  short term. You may want to ignore what happens in   Iran or the Persian Gulf and say well we have we  can meet our needs but you actually can't and not   just with energy with every manufactured product  starting with pharmaceuticals and ending with   automobiles all of it is dependent on free trade  between nations on globalization which again our   country promoted and has benefited from but now  we find out that we have a lot less economic power  

than we thought we because we're not in control.  Control is actually in the hands of international   markets, whatever those are, but it's not in our  hands. And the third area in which American power   has been radically reduced, obviously, is its  moral power, which conservatives spent a lot   of time making fun of. Moral power? What's that?  We don't have to be loved, we have to be feared.   But it is also true that those very same people  in fact acknowledge it when they say America is   exceptional. It is a beacon of freedom to the rest  of the world. People look to the United States as   an example of what we'd like to be. And that's why  the majority of global constitutions copy ours our   system of government, liberal democracy. And all  of that rested on the idea that the United States,   while flawed and capable of fermenting coups  and assassinating people, kind of went out of   its way to pretend it didn't. Now, why did  the United States pretend it didn't? Why   the US government do these things and then deny  doing them? Well, because even while doing them,   the United States government acknowledged those  things were wrong. It is never allowed to kill   the innocent. Assassination is not war. It's a  crime. Killing the families of people you don't   like is not allowed. We have done that, but we've  never admitted that we're doing it. We've never   done it openly. And when caught, we either deny  it or apologize for it and put the people who did  

it on trial, Lieutenant Cali and the rest, etc.,  etc., etc. That's why we have war crimes trials   to make the statement that we have standards that  are above savagery. We're America. We're better   than you morally, not just richer, but better than  you. And that has power and we have in fact used   that moral power to our great benefit for a long  time. Suddenly that is gone. How do we know it's   gone? Because the United States government is no  longer pretending that it is not doing certain   things that has never done before like assassinate  people openly beginning with General Solommani at   the end of Trump's first term. It is killing  civilians. It blew up a girl school attached   to the IRGC naval base in the opening hours of the  war and never apologized for it. Not one time did   anyone from the US government say, "Well, that was  awful. Sorry." Not one time. That's just the cost   of war apparently. And more specifically, and  in some ways more shockingly, the United States   government has threatened to target and then  two days ago targeted civilian infrastructure,   meaning the systems that keep people alive, keep  civilians alive in Iran and any country, power,   water, sewage, delcary for life. the lives  of people who were not fighting in the war,  

who did not make the decisions that led to the  war, who are innocent bystanders, the kind of   people you are not allowed to kill on purpose.  But when you destroy civilian infrastructure,   you are killing them on purpose. And so, while  the US government in war has destroyed civilian   infrastructure at scale, by the way, during the  Second World War, this has happened before, but it   is never happened so openly and without apology.  And never once has any American leader threatened   in public to kill civilians unless the government  of the country he opposes submits. That's never   happened because that's barbaric behavior. That's  not what civilized nations do. And suddenly,   not only is the US government doing that, but  no one is saying anything about it. Like that's   just fine. And there's also of course because  why wouldn't you at this point it's threatening   nuclear strikes against entire populations or  as the president himself said civilizations.   Now let's hope none of that happens and let's  hope there aren't further strikes on civilian   infrastructure that civilians aren't killed on  purpose. Not simply because we're like bleeding   heart liberals that think it's bad, but because  it's not good for our country because, well,   in the end, what you do will be done to you.  That's almost a physics principle. That's just   a fact. That's not moralizing. That's reality.  What you do will be done to you. And the United   States has a lot more civilian infrastructure  than Iran does. So if the global hegeimon is  

announcing that it's okay to murder civilians in a  country you don't like whose policies you oppose.   It stands to reason that we may be the victim  of that kind of thinking. In fact, it's dead   certain that we will be the victim of that kind of  thinking. Americans will be the victims of that.   So this is a huge moment and a huge loss for  the United States. But maybe above all the way   in which American power has been reduced and  this is the saddest to say out loud is that it   is suddenly obvious to everyone both in this  country and around the world that the United   States does not have sovereignty which is another  way of saying American leaders aren't really in   charge of America. They can make some decisions.  They can make noises and give speeches, but the   big decisions, the ones that change the course of  history, are not up to them. They're employees.   They're not the boss. Now, who is the boss?  Well, that's an open debate. But in this war,   it has become very obvious, undeniable, and in  fact, it's been admitted by this administration   that the president of the United States didn't  decide the time and place of this war. The prime   minister of Israel decided the time and place  of this war. Benjamin Netanyahu was in charge.

Admitting that out loud, and of course it was  known to everyone who was paying close attention   is a sea change in the way not just the rest  of the world thinks about the United States,   but the way Americans think about their own  country. Because the premise of our system is   that the people who live here are in charge of it  and that they can control its outcomes by voting.   We just had elections in a lot of the country  primaries yesterday and an ever diminishing   number of people march off to the polls with the  notion in mind that I can change things with my   vote. The war in Iran has taught us that actually  on the big questions, the people you elect aren't   even in charge. Someone else is. In this case,  Benjamin Netanyahu. What are the long-term effects   of a population understanding that voting doesn't  make any difference? Well, it's hard to know.   We've never been here before in 250 years. But  it's easy to imagine that radicalism, extremism,   violence would be the outcome of that. Because if  people cease believing that they have any power   whatsoever to change a system that is hurting  them, there's no peaceful way to make the pain   stop. They will use non- peaceful means to get  what they want. Democracy famously is a pressure   relief valve. It keeps people calm. You may not  like what's happening right now, but just wait   till the election and you can change it. When  people start to believe that's not possible,  

that it's all fake, that in the end, no  matter what you vote for or who you elect,   Benjamin Netanyahu or some other foreigner  is in charge of your country or the donors,   why wouldn't they take extraleal means to express  their frustration? Well, they they probably would,   and you would get a violent, chaotic country  like so many countries around the world.   So you don't want that. But unless someone  restores not just the fiction but the reality of   sovereignty to the United States, meaning you can  elect somebody and he can change the system if he   wants, if he has a mandate from voters to do it,  he can change it in ways that Bill Aman doesn't   like. Unless that is clearly true, then you're  going to get a very radical population. And if you   mix that realization with an economic downturn,  which is the obvious end result of this war, who   knows what you could get. So the costs of this war  to the United States are profound and they have   nothing to do with Iran's nuclear program or its  navy. Assuming it even had a navy, did Iran have   a navy? Who cares? Who cares about its nuclear  program? Actually, Pakistan has a nuclear program.   Lots of countries you don't think should have  nuclear weapons, including Israel and France   have nuclear weapons. What matters in the end is  whether the United States survives in recognizable  

form. And this war makes it less likely that  it will. Not certain. It's not lights out or   anything, but we are clearly on the road to  radical destructive change in the United States   accelerated by this war. And that's bad. And  while we're at it, what about Iran? What's going   to happen to Iran after all this? Well, of course,  it's impossible to really know because this is so   dynamic again. The announcement was made less  than 20 minutes ago that we're back at war and   who knows where that will wind up. But if current  trends continue, it seems pretty clear that Iran   will emerge from this war stronger, battered, lots  of dead people, lots of destroyed infrastructure,   probably a refugee crisis, not much of a  standing army, maybe, who knows? But it is very   hard to believe that Iran will emerge from this  without control. Maybe shared control with Oman,   but still control of the straight of Hormuz.  And that makes that one fact alone makes Iran   a global player in the globalized economy. There  is no getting around the fact that if you want   to get your commodities out of the Gulf through  which a fifth of global commodities flow energy,   petrochemicals, you're going to have to deal  with Iran. So that means that after months of   war with Iran, this rogue state, this Middle  Eastern North Korea run by crazy people who   are cannibals are throwing gays off buildings for  fun, that country becomes almost inevitably a real  

country that other real countries deal with as a  peer country. It's also pretty easy to imagine an   enhanced Iranian economy because at some point US  sanctions will either have to be dropped, reduced,   or they will just become less meaningful because  the US dollar will not be dominant in the way that   it is now. And finally, and this is not a minor  point either, Iran's image around the world will   be enhanced and even in the region. Now, how would  that happen? How would that work? How could Iran,   which is not Arab, it's Persian? And the Persians  and the Arabs do have a long history of animosity   toward each other, but also intermarriage and  complex relationship for sure, but some animosity,   particularly the Persians and the Gulf Arabs.  And it's not just religious difference, there are   cultural differences and attitudinal differences  that have caused friction between those groups for   a long time. But already Iran, which is bombing  Arab countries and destroying Arab countries,   is more popular in some Arab countries than it  was at the beginning of the war. Now, how could   that be? Well, because Iran has taken a clear  position on the murder of Palestinian civilians,   particularly in Lebanon, but not just Lebanon, in  the West Bank and Gaza. Also, Iran has tied its   ceasefire negotiations to a ceasefire in Lebanon.  Now, that's not something that resonates with most  

Americans. Like, who cares? But in the Middle  East and in the entire rest of the world really,   which is watching this, watching Israel destroy  Lebanon for reasons that are not clear at all.   Murder Christians wholesale in Lebanon,  destroy Christian villages, bomb Beirut,   not a traditional Hezbollah stronghold. Why are  you bombing Beirut? unclear, but it's happening   and the rest of the world is watching carefully  because Lebanon is a country a lot of people have   been to probably the most beautiful country in the  world with some of the most sophisticated people   in the world. It's not Yemen, it's Lebanon. It's  on the Mediterranean and the rest of the world   is watching this in horror and no one's doing  anything about it. The United States is abetting   it. United States is helping it happen despite  what they tell you. Those are American weapons   and weapon systems being used to murder Christians  in Lebanon. Who is doing something about it? Iran.   Hate to say that. Wish that weren't true. Wish it  didn't fall to Iran to do something about this,   but it has. And they are. And they're doing more  about this than any other country, including ours,   including any of the Gulf States. Sorry. Because  they are tying the reopening of the strait, which   the world wants, to an end to Israeli bombing and  murder in Lebanon. So in the eyes of the region,   whatever people hate about Iran, and there's  a lot that the Arabs hate about Iran, they are   uniquely standing up for the Palestinians. The  mass murder in Gaza, the genocide in Gaza, and  

history will record it as that. It is genocide.  It is a state policy to eliminate a people and   transfer them out of a land. It is genocide by any  definition. is the biggest thing that is happening   at this point in history. It is the biggest  thing. It is the thing about which the most   will be written going forward. How did the rest  of the world watch this and do nothing? How did   the United States back this? How did the United  States become the only country on the planet   other than Israel to approve of this genocide?  These are questions normal people will ask fairly   soon. They're asking them now. And Iran, for  all of its many faults, as an American, it's   painful to admit this. has tried to do something  about it. So long-term, that doesn't hurt Iran.   Whatever their motive for doing that, that does  not hurt Iran. That enhances Iran as a state. So the whole thing, like so much of life,  has turned out to be exactly the opposite of   what you thought. You initiate a regime change  war against Iran. You kill its elderly cleric   head of state. You blow up a girl school. You  sink its ships. You decapitate its air force,   whatever that was. You unleash the full fury  of the largest military in human history on   this country. And in the end, almost inevitably,  that country becomes stronger and the countries  

that attack it become weaker. Again, only  in real life do ironies like this exist,   but they are everywhere. In fact, that is  the story of life. The opposite happens. Who could have called this? Who could have seen  this coming? Well, certainly almost no one in   Washington saw this coming because they've been  talking about this war with Iran and the need   to decapitate Iran and do something about  Iran. America's biggest problem is Iran and   their proxies and the Houthis and Hezbollah and  Hamas. And they've been yammering on about this   at the Brookings Institution and CNN and the  Atlantic Council and every place where midwits   with overpriced degrees gather to talk about the  world that they don't understand whose languages   they don't speak. But whenever they gather in  Washington to talk about the world, Iran is at   the top of the list of problems we must solve. And  in almost none of these gatherings is anyone piped   up to say, "Well, wait a second. If we do that,  the opposite will happen. Iran will become more   powerful and we'll become less powerful. Almost  nobody said that in Washington. Literally almost   nobody. And if there is somebody, who is that  person? There wasn't one. But there was at least   one person outside of Washington who said this.  His name is John Mirshimer. He's been a professor   at the University of Chicago since 1982, over 40  years. And he studies international relations,   the way that countries get along with each  other, balances of power regionally and globally.  

and he's smart and he's ariodite. But above  all, he is wise. He draws obvious conclusions   from longitudinal data sets as they say in  academia. He looks at what happens over time   and tries to understand what this tells us about  the way nations behave and about the way people   behave about human nature which is constant. It  doesn't change. And because he is one of the very   few people in the field of international relations  who has this ability married to personal bravery,   he's willing to say things that are unpopular,  which is the rarest of all qualities in academia   because he has these two qualities. He has been  maybe the only guy or one of the very few guys to   call it right. Back in 2007, he and a friend of  his from Harvard called Steven Walt wrote a book   on the so-called Jewish lobby, Apac and whole  constellation of nonprofits in Washington that   seek to steer the US Congress and the executive  of the White House to giving Israel more money   and more military aid to changing the inherent  priorities of American foreign policy, which   are to protect and enhance the United States to do  things that are good for the population of America   to change that priority to protect Israel, do  what Israel wants. And the two of them wrote this   fairly famous book about it back in 2007 and were  immediately attacked, can you guess, as Nazis and  

anti-semmites. Well, turns out neither of them was  a Nazi or an anti-semite. Just the opposite. Kind   of normal liberals, not racist in any sense. And  the charge itself was ludicrous. You notice what   Apac is doing? You're an anti-semite. Be like, "If  you criticized Fizer, you're against all science."   I mean, it doesn't make any sense. It's a slur.  It's slander designed to make you be quiet. And in   most cases, it works, which is why they keep doing  it. But in this one specific case, it didn't work.   John Mirshimer, who had tenure at Chicago, did not  lose his job. And not only did he keep speaking,   he upped the volume of his speaking. and kept  telling the world, though most people didn't   listen, what he had personally seen and how he  interpreted that. In other words, why does the   United States military go to war and Mirshimer  through close observation concluded, well, in   the modern era, mostly it goes to war, big wars on  behalf of Israel. Here is Professor John Mirshimer   in 2007 describing why the US went to war in Iraq.  It is manifestly clear to most Americans that the   Iraq war is one of the greatest strategic blunders  in American history. Our argument is that Israel   and especially the lobby were two of the main  driving forces behind the decision to invade Iraq.  

It is hard to imagine that war happening  in their absence. To start with Israel,   it was the only country besides Kuwait where both  the government and a majority of the population   favored the war. The Israeli government, to  include Prime Minister Chiron, pushed the Bush   administration hard to make sure that it did not  lose its nerve in the months before the invasion.   Other influential Israelis like former prime  ministers Ahood Barack and Benjamin Netanyahu   also implored the United States to take down  Saddam. In fact, Israel was pushing so hard for   war that its allies in the United States warned  Israeli officials to damp down their rhetoric   lest it be seen as a war for Israel. I might  also add that President Clinton said in 2006   that every Israeli politician I knew thought that  Saddam was so great a threat that he should be   removed even if he did not have WMD. So you can  see why Professor John Mirshimer was considered   threat number one by Apac and we'll just use the  phrase and it's amen chorus in the American media.   Not because he's a bigot or a Nazi, but precisely  because he is not. He's a eminently reasonable man   who understands the facts and isn't afraid to  say them. He's not acting out of animus. He's  

acting out of honesty and in fact decency. So you  can't have people like John Mirshimer talking. If   people are going to criticize Israel, they should  also be attacking Jews. They should be full-blown   crazy people. People like that are helpful to  the cause. People like John Mirshimer tend to   provoke an open rational debate on the topic that  Apac and the defenders of Israel's influence over   the United States cannot possibly win because it  doesn't make any sense at all. So they don't want   to have the debate. So Mirshimer was basically  written out of the world he occupied though he   is a full tenure professor at the University of  Chicago, one of the most prestigious universities   in the world. Suddenly he wasn't getting invited  to write a lot of New York Times opeds. In fact   for many years very few non-experts heard from  him at all. But he kept saying the same thing,   which is the Israeli government and its agents in  the United States, registered and unregistered,   are pushing the US government toward outcomes that  will hurt the United States. And now his ultimate   vindication, the war in Iran. And not just the war  in Iran, but the war between Russia and Ukraine,   which is in fact a war between the United States  and Russia. And we got into that war because of   pressure from exactly the same people. The people  who have pushed for war in Iran have spent the  

last 5 years pushing the United States to go to  war with Russia. And that war is still ongoing   because of pressure from those very same people.  What can you do to monitor important parts of   your life that you can't always keep your eyes on?  things like the far corners of a job site or ranch   or let's say you've got a boat dock somewhere and  you can't check on it every day. Cellular security   cameras from Defend are the answer. These cameras  are very easy to install. No Wi-Fi required,   no complex setup process. You don't need to be a  master electrician to do it. No running wires all   over the place. You just mount the camera, turn it  on, and it automatically connects to the strongest   available cellular signal and start sending photos  and videos directly to your phone. You can be   across the country. You never have to wonder what  is happening where you live. You've got total   security all the time. It's a gate entrance,  a construction site, it's your barn, cabin,   anything else you need to keep your eye on when  you're gone. This will do it for you. And unlike a   lot of security systems, this is affordable. peace  of mind for an honest price. defendellcam.com is   the address. Go there, see for yourself.  defendellcam.com. If you've got a signal,   you've got 24-hour security. So, where does this  leave us now? Is either one of those wars going to   end anytime soon? Is it possible that either one  is resolved in a way that doesn't hurt the US? And   what is the motive behind getting the US military,  American taxpayers and service members involved  

in wars in Ukraine and Iran that can't possibly  benefit us? Why would you want to do that? And why   is our political class allowed it to happen? Those  are some of the questions that we asked Professor   John Mirshimer in an interview that every person  should listen to. Every American should watch   this. So without further delay, here's Professor  John Mirshimer. Professor Mir Shimemer, thank you   very much. The most vindicated man in America.  I think of you all the time. By the way, your   uh your piece on the Israeli lobby came out in  2006. I just checked. The book came out in 2007,   so 20 years ago. And it was widely derided,  universally derided in the media as a conspiracy   theory. There is no such thing. If that book  came out today, how do you think it would sell?   Oh, I think it would sell lots of copies. There's  no question about that. It sold lots of copies   then, although the lobby went to enormous lengths  uh to suppress it. Uh do you know Abe Foxman, the   former head of the ADL wrote a book attacking our  book before our book came out that was due to come   out the same day our book was supposed to come  out. Uh actually actually yeah he wrote a book Abe   Foxman that was a direct attack on our book before  our book was published and he didn't have the page   proofs or anything. Uh he was basing his attack on  what we had said in the article written the year  

before and it was scheduled to come out on exactly  the same day that our book came out. Yes. U and   then of course the lobby went to enormous lengths  uh to make sure that we got as little attention   as possible. They ended up getting us cancelled  at Google. We were supposed to give a big talk   at Google and the lobby moved in and got that talk  cancelled. Uh we were supposed to give a big talk   at the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations which  the lobby then got cancelled because the lobby   doesn't exist. It's just a conspiracy theory and  if you disagree the lobby will cancel you. Yeah.   Yeah. Well, I'm I'm just grateful that you lived  long enough to see yourself vindicated, completely   vindicated, and not just on that question, but  on many others. So, so now this has got to be,   as someone who assesses the world for a living,  one of the most interesting moments of your life,   because the world is I don't Well, where are we?  Let's just start there. You you look out and what   do you see? Nothing but trouble everywhere.  And uh that makes it incredibly interesting.   and uh uh and depressing at the same time. I do  wake up sometimes in the morning depressed at   the thought that I'm now going to have to go  read all the newspapers and all the websites   and get the bad news. But it is a fascinating  world and trying to make sense of it uh is a   very interesting business. So, you know, the idea  of coming here to talk to you is very enticing   because we get to sort of feel feel our way around  and try and figure out what's going on. It's just  

incredible and it I I don't know the answer.  That's why I'm grateful you're here. But I I   sense that this is a this is a change that history  will record as profound. Like this is not just a   bump in the road. This is a this is a detour.  I think with regard to both the Ukraine war   uh and the war against Iran, profound change  is going to result from both. I think that   Putin is going to win in Ukraine. Uh Ukraine is  going to end up as a dysfunctional rump state.   I think in the process of this war ra NATO has  been wrecked. Uh the US trans the US European   transatlantic relationship has been badly  damaged. Uh and if you go to the Middle East,   I think uh the Iranians are going to come out  of this war in much better shape than they went   into the war on February 28th. And uh I think  that America's position uh in the Middle East   and certainly Israel's position is going to be  dam badly damaged as a result of this war. That   those are my instincts as well along the way to  that outcome which I mean nothing's guaranteed,   but I strongly agree with your assessment. I  think that's very likely to happen in both places,   but all kinds of other things could happen.  So as bad things, very destructive things. So,   as you look at both conflicts, which gives  you more concern? I find it hard to answer   that question because I'm so concerned about both  conflicts. Let's start with Ukraine. Yeah. And and  

I would just say as a general point, I think that  the worst outcome in both cases, and I can expound   on each is the possibility of nuclear weapons  being used. Um, and let's start with Ukraine,   as you say. Uh the uh Ukrainians with strong  support from mainly the Europeans but also the   United States have ramped up their drone war and  missile war against uh the territory of Russia. In   other words, they're striking deep into Russia and  they're doing significant damage inside of Russia.   And the Russians believe that this has to stop,  especially since the Europeans and the Americans   are talking about increasing the volume and  quality of the attacks uh in the future. And the   Trump administration, the Trump administration,  yeah, I don't think President Trump himself,   but I think the deep state is committed  to the Ukraine war uh still. Uh, I mean,   Trump has pulled away in uh, a lot of respects,  but I think the deep state remains committed and   certainly the Europeans remain deeply committed to  helping Ukraine inflict punishment on the civilian   population and on infrastructure deep inside of  Russia. And the Russians are having a devil of a   time stopping that. And the end result is that  there is increasing talk inside of Russia that  

the only solution to this problem is for Russia  to attack with conventional weaponry to start   with European countries or NATO countries. In  other words, uh Russia has to stop limiting its   attacks to Ukraine and it has to start thinking  about attacking inside of Europe but with   conventional weapons. And the view of many inside  of Russia is that if that doesn't work, if the   conventional weaponry doesn't stop uh the attacks  on mother Russia, then what Russia should do is   use limited nuclear attacks against NATO countries  to send a very clear signal to the Europeans and   to the United States that they better stop or  this will escalate out of control. So, I think   there is a serious possibility. I don't think  it's a likely possibility, but I think there's   a serious possibility uh that nuclear weapons  will be used uh in the Ukraine war. There's   been very little coverage in the American press of  Ukrainian European American attacks on the Russian   homeland. What to what extent have they caused  damage and casualties and their serious attacks?   Well, they've caused serious damage to the energy  infrastructure and they occasionally kill a good   number of Russian citizens. Uh this is nothing  like the bombing attacks in World War II or even  

the American bombing campaign in Vietnam. Uh it's  not on that scale. But from a Russian perspective,   any serious attacks on Mother Russia uh are  unacceptable. And uh the problem that Putin   faces is that there has long been widespread  criticism inside Russia that he has not waged   the war against Ukraine vigorously enough. The  fact is that Putin and the Russian military of   course have gone to great lengths to minimize  the number of Ukrainian civilians who have been   killed. It's very important to understand, you'd  never know this from reading the mainstream media   in the West. No, because he's Hitler. Yes.  that the Russians have actually not waged a   serious punishment campaign against the civilian  population uh inside of Ukraine with the possible   exception of destroying the electrical grid. Uh  but even there the end result was that not many   civilians were killed. But what's happening here  is that pressure is beginning to build on Putin to   up the ante to escalate because of these attacks  on Russian infrastructure and on the Russian   civilian population and the pressure is really  building and you see this in the writings of   Sergey Karaganov who is the principal proponent of  the view that I just described. Sergey Keraganov   says that when he first proposed this view shortly  after the war in Ukraine started, this is back  

in February of 2022, most people viewed him as an  outlier. They didn't take his argument seriously.   He says now that the overwhelming majority of  people that he talks to inside the Russian elite   and even inside the broader population agree with  his view that it's time for the Russians to take   the gloves off and to begin to attack into Eastern  Europe with conventional weapons to start with, of   course, but then if that doesn't work, use nuclear  weapons. It's time to send a clear message to the   West that their attacks on the Russian homeland,  their attacks deep into Russia have to stop. Cost   of living is already making it hard to live here  and it's not getting any better. Unfortunately,   it's likely to get worse and a lot of Americans  fill the gap with credit cards, not just for fancy   dinners, but to cover things like groceries and  bills. That is a disaster. It's understandable,   but don't go down that road because there is a tax  in effect a survival tax of 20% interest or more.   Why would you do that? Why would you hand money  to the big banks when you could keep it for your   family? Our friends at American Financing have a  better way. If you're looking to buy your first   home or refinance your current one, they're  helping Americans achieve the dream of home   ownership with monthly mortgage rates currently in  the fives. American Financing saves its customers   an average of 800 bucks per month. That's nearly  10 grand every year back to you. This isn't just   a loan. It's a total financial reset. So, debt  is tough, but there's a smart way to do it and  

a reckless, self-destructive way to do it.  Credit cards. And so, we recommend American   Financing. They're salary based, not commission  based, which means they actually work for you,   not the banks. They're called America's Home  for Home Loans for a reason. Call 8006855696. 800685-55696 or visit americanfinancing.net/tucker. I I don't want to be well before I get to my  theories about it. What would be the motive   of the United States and Western European  countries to accelerate and to fund drone   and missile attacks into Russia? Like what what  do they hope to achieve by doing that? Well,   the caraggonov argument which I think is correct  is that the Russians believe that they don't think   that uh this is a red line. Uh people in the west  especially in Europe think they can continue to   up the ante and increase the number of attacks and  the quality of the attacks or the lethality. Well,   there's a belief that this will bring Putin to the  negotiating table and that Ukraine will be able to   get a favorable deal. In other words, if we uh  increase the scope and scale of these attacks,   Putin will surrender. Uh beatings will continue  until morale improves kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.   And uh so so that's the idea. And the argument  that people like Caraganov make is that the only  

way that we can reverse this situation is make it  clear to the West that there is a red line here.   They don't understand that, but we're going to  make it clear. And the way we're going to do it   is we're going to attack NATO countries and we're  going to dare them to counterattack. And the bet   is that the uh Europeans and the Americans will  back off and tell the Ukrainians no more of those   attacks. We won't assist you. we won't provide  you with the drones and the intelligence to attack   mother Russia anymore. Uh and that this will  work. And the Caragana view is if it doesn't work,   what we'll then do is use nuclear weapons.  And that will surely send a clear message   that there is a red line here. I understand the  reasoning. I disagree. I think that European   leaders and American leaders would be thrilled  if Russia bombed the Baltics, Eastern Europe,   even Western Europe. And I think they'd be more  thrilled if they use nuclear weapons because it   would give Western leaders a justification for  waging an allout direct war on Russia, which   is what they want. I I don't think the United  States wants an allout direct war on Russia.   If it was a nuclear war, that would mean that  a large number of people would be incinerated.   I mean, it does seem like though there's  this pattern, and I think you see it in   this current war where the West provokes Russia  to action so it can cast Russia as Nazi Germany   and justify aggression against Russia. There's no  question about that. But here we're talking about  

NATO getting involved in a war. And NATO's in no  position to win a war against the Russians. Uh,   number one. Number two, the last thing the United  States wants, given that we're up to our eyeballs   and alligators in the Middle East, plus we have  to worry about containing China and East Asia,   is a war uh in Ukraine against Russia. And then  most important of all, once you talk about the   United States and Russia actually fighting each  other, the threat of nuclear escalation uh goes up   greatly. And the last thing we want is a nuclear  war over Ukraine because Ukraine is just not that   important. It is to it is to some people in the US  government. I mean, their their ancestors are from   there. They they identify with it. They really  care about it. Um, I mean, of course, I agree with   everything you're saying, but I just then people  are not thinking clearly. They really think that   by killing civilians or destroying infrastructure  in Russia, they can get Putin to who's under   pressure from his right flank, as you just said,  to say, "Okay, you're right." Well, Carrie's point   is you're absolutely right that people in the West  are not thinking clearly. Yes. So what we have to   do is we have to focus the mind and there's no  better way to focus the mind than to pop off a   couple nuclear weapons in Europe. That will focus  their mind. They will get the message. They will   understand that we are then out on the slippery  slope to oblivion and they will back off. But  

that's the only way you can get them to back off.  Do do you think the people in Russia saying this   mean it? Yes. The thing you want to remember, and  I think it's very hard for Americans in general   to understand this, is that Russia views what's  happening in Ukraine as an existential threat.   Yes, Ukraine is their backyard. Think back to the  Cuban missile crisis. The idea of the Soviet Union   placing nuclear warheads on missiles inside  of Cuba was categorically unacceptable to the   United States. just unacceptable. It was viewed as  a threat to our survival. It was a mortal threat.   Whether that was right or not is another issue.  But that was the view. The Russians have made it   clear since 2008 when we said that NATO would  expand to the point where it included Ukraine   that this was an existential threat. It would  not be allowed to happen. The war broke out in   February 2022. And since that war broke out, we  have a situation where Ukraine, which is backed   by the United States, invaded Mother Russia. Just  want to think about that. Ukraine, an ally of the   United States, a country we're supporting, invaded  Mother Russia. Then, that was in August of 2024.   Then in February of 2025, Ukraine attacked one  leg of the strategic nuclear triad of Russia.  

It went after its nuclear bomber force. Uh and  it was supported you again Ukraine is supported   by the United States. It gets intelligence from  the United States. These kind of actions were   unthinkable during the cold war. So here you have  a situation today where we are right on Russia's   doorstep and we are supporting Ukraine which  invaded mother Russia and is launching attacks   on its strategic nuclear triad. The Russians  think that this is categorically unacceptable   and they're going to go to enormous lengths to  prevent uh this from continuing. They're going   to win the war. They're determined to win the war  and they're determined to make sure that NATO does   not continue working with the Ukrainians to hit  targets deep inside Russia. They feel like their   survival is threatened. They feel like they've  been backed into a corner. And when great powers   feel like they've been backed into a corner,  you never want to underestimate the risk that   they're willing to take. And that's why people  should take Caragonov's warning so seriously.   I Oh, I do. Um, but the administration doesn't  seem to. And I'm confused by why as a candidate,   Donald Trump bragged about, and I think I think  he meant it. I know he meant it, shutting down,   you know, bringing a peace between Russia and  Ukraine immediately. I can do it in one day. He  

said he did seem motivated to do that. um he  talked about it for years and then didn't do   it. Why? Well, let me just start by reminding you  that in his first term when he came into office,   he had two goals, two major foreign policy goals.  One was to end engagement with China and move to a   policy of containment. And he was very successful  at that. But he also wanted to improve relations   with Russia, with Putin in particular, and  do everything he could to peel the Chinese   and the Russians away from each other and get the  Russians on our side of the ledger. That was his   goal. But he was undermined by Russia gate. This  very important to understand that. So when Trump   leaves office in 2021, relations between Russia  and the United States have hardly improved at all.   Now, when he comes into office in January of  2025, at that point in time, his goal is to do   in the second term with regard to Russia what he  did in the first term. Okay? So he starts out on   the right foot and lots of people, me included,  believe he has all the right instincts and that   he's in a position where he can significantly  improve relations with Russia, which would   certainly be in our interest and maybe even end  the Ukraine war, which would be in everybody's  

interest, including Ukraine's interest. But  the problem that he runs into is twofold.   First of all, he's hamfisted when it comes to  diplomacy. He He's just not good at the art of   the deal, at least at the diplomatic level.  There's almost Yeah. At all. There's just no   question about that at this point in time. So,  he fails to shut down the war. And of course,   he's facing huge resistance from inside the  deep state. Uh because there are lots of people   inside the deep state who don't want to reach  an accommodation with the Russians. And there   are lots of people on the outside as well in  the general foreign policy establishment who   don't want to reach an accommodation with the  Russians. So that's point number one. But point   number two is he then gets deeply involved in the  Middle East, especially with the Iran war. And in   a very important way, he's now so consumed with  Iran that he has hardly any time to pay attention   to what's going on in Ukraine. And that allows  all of these people in the deep state and in the   foreign policy establishment who want to continue  to have good relations with the Europeans and the   Ukrainians and antagonistic relations towards  the Russians to dominate the diplomacy uh in   Europe. Uh so for that reason uh we're basically  back to square one with regard to Ukraine and we   have less influence in Europe than we have had in  our lifetimes. I would say now we have harder to  

restrain uh the Europeans. Things around the world  are moving so fast right now, it's impossible to   keep up with all of the changes. But we do know  that when those changes happen, markets change,   too. And nothing changes faster than the price  of precious metals, gold and silver. It just   shifts in an instant because it is a reaction  to and against what's happening in the world.   So timing is essential. If you're thinking about  adding precious metals, and you definitely should,   we do, you need to know when prices are going  to move and why they're moving. And Battalion   Metals makes that all really simple. You can buy  the dip when it happens. So, if you want realtime   alerts sent directly to your inbox when gold and  silver prices move, go to battalionals.com/alerts. Markets move fast. Stay ahead of  them. So, it's battalion.com/alerts. It does seem like a kind of nihilism though to  keep lobbing missiles and drones into mainland   Russia cuz like no normal person thinks that  that's going to achieve the stated effect. It   can only result in something horrible happening.  Like I Let me make two points. Yes. One is if   you think about the Russian bombing campaign  against Ukraine. Yes. Although the Russians have   not killed many Ukrainians, as I said before,  it was not a punishment campaign. They have  

done a huge amount of damage to infrastructure  inside of Ukraine. The Russian bombing campaign   against Ukraine has been much more extensive  than the Ukrainian bombing campaign against   Russia. But we have seen no evidence that  the Ukrainians are willing to throw their   hands up and surrender. Smart. Therefore, why  would you expect the Russians to throw their   hands up and surrender? And in fact, given our  previous discussion five minutes ago, what the   Russians are talking about doing now in response  is attacking into Eastern Europe. It just seems   like there is this misperception and you see this  in a lot of other theaters and countries of the   leadership of Russia. So we tell ourselves that  Putin is an absolute dictator, chairman ma style   dictator who can do whatever he wants, who's got  total autonomy, sovereignty in his own country,   that there are no competing political forces. he's  not under pressure from anyone domestically. He   just like wakes up and decides what to do. That's  completely false. And then two, that he's like the   most scary Russian nationalist who's ever lived.  He hates the West. He wants to rebuild the Soviet   Empire. Like that's not true either. He's pretty  moderate by modern Russian standards. No, he's   very moderate. Yeah, I know. people who argue that  we should get rid of him and we'll get, you know,   uh, a real peace nick in his place are living in  a dream world. Uh, as I said before, he's being  

criticized, uh, far and wide inside of Russia  for not having waged the war vigorously enough.   Uh, in fact, going back to when the war started in  2022, I've argued on a number of occasions that if   I were playing his hand, uh, I would have, uh,  mobilized, uh, the Russian military much more   quickly than he did, and I would have played  hard ball in ways that he has not played. So,   he has been, uh, I don't want to say he's been  a pussycat, but the idea that he's been this   ruthless leader uh, on the same scale as someone  like Adolf Hitler is a laughable argument. Uh   but what's happened in the west is that we've  created this caricature of him and we've created   this Russian threat that bears no resemblance  to reality. I mean you see this when people   talk about uh the danger of Russia conquering  Eastern Europe. In other words, a lot of people   are saying, "We've got to stand up to the Russians  now because they're on the verge of conquering all   of Ukraine, and once they're done with Ukraine,  they're going to move into Eastern Europe." And   Putin's ultimate goal is to recreate the Soviet  Empire. And of course, he has the wherewithal to   do that. That's one set of arguments that you  hear. But then you hear the argument that the   Ukrainians now have the Russians on the ropes.  Uh the Russians are in deep trouble. The Russian   military is suffering enormous casualties. They're  being pushed back to Ukrainians by the Ukrainians.   These are two completely different sets of  arguments that are at odds with each other. Yes.  

And the question is which one is true? And the  argument that the Russians are on their back feet   is wrong. The Russians are moving forward. They're  steadily but slowly winning the war. But the idea   that they're going to conquer all of Ukraine, not  going to happen. The idea that they're going to   conquer territory in Eastern Europe, not going to  happen. But people in the west make that argument.   This is especially true in Europe. Uh because  they want to create a Russian boogeyman so that   the Ukrainians stay in the fight. We continue to  support the Ukrainians and we go to great lengths   to continue to wreck Russia. There are lots  of people, it's important to understand this,   who want to wreck Russia. They want to continue  to do everything they can to wreck the Russian   economy. More and more sanctions. Is that  what we that's what we have to do? Uh and   uh support the Ukrainians on the battlefield so  that they can turn the tide uh and then support   the attacks with drones and missiles against  mother Russia because that will affect the   civilian population way in ways that cause the  population to rise up against Putin. There's lots   of people who still believe this despite the fact  that after four plus years uh it hasn't worked and   if anything the Russians are going to win the war.  I I still and after watching this all these years,   I still don't fully understand the motive. Here  you have one of the most beautiful countries and   cultures in the world with flaws, but compared  to what? I mean, Russia is a beautiful place  

with a beautiful culture, a sense of itself,  and it's a civilization, not just a country.   Why would you want to destroy it? What What  drives people? I I understand why you'd be mad   that Putin moved into Eastern Ukraine. Fine. But  destroy Russia, like where does that come from?   Well, the United States during the unipolar  moment uh and the unipolar moment runs from   about 1992 immediately after the Soviet Union  collapses up until about 2017 is by definition   the only great power in the world. And we don't  like the idea of being challenged when we are   the unipole. We think that it's our way or the  highway. And you want to remember that in 2000,   this is in the middle of the unipolar moment, uh,  Putin takes over in Russia. And Putin over the   course of the time from 2000 up to 2026 has stood  up to the Americans. He gave a famous speech at   Munich in 2007 where he made it very clear to the  West that he was sick and tired of how the West   was treating Russia. And the fact is the United  States does not like anybody standing up to it,   right? You have to do it our way, right? You  you have to be subservient. And Putin was not   subservient. Contrast him Putin with Boris Yeltson  who who ran Russia during the 1990s. Uh Yeltson  

basically did what we told him to do. We had him  in our hip pocket. That was not true with Putin.   So for that reason we got increasingly angry  with Putin as uh the unipolar moment wore on   and then once Russia becomes a great power in  roughly 2017 the United States is interested   in knocking Russia out of the ranks of the great  powers. Right? We understand that they've become   a great power but we'd like to knock them out of  the ranks. And of course, you want to understand   that the Russians after 2017 when they're a great  power are resisting our efforts to bring Ukraine   into NATO. And this is just unacceptable to us.  So, we begin to think of ways to undermine Russia,   to knock Russia out of the ranks of the great  powers. And if you fast forward to late 2021,   early 2022, remember the war in Ukraine starts on  February 24th, 2022. If you go back, let's say,   to December 27, 2021, December 2021, and  ramp forward to when the war actually starts,   what you see, if you look carefully, is that Putin  is going to great lengths to try to avoid a war.   He does not want remember. Well, yes. The United  States makes no effort to work with the Russians  

to avoid a war. It's really quite remarkable.  Well, and not just that provokes Russia by sending   Kla Harris to the Munich Security Conference and  saying in public to Zilinski, we want you to join   NATO on camera. Absolutely. This is right before  Yes. This is right before in February. That's   exactly right. And then just think about this.  The war starts February 24th. Shortly thereafter,   I mean a day or two later, Putin sends a message  to Zalinski and says, "Let's start negotiating."   They first start negotiating in Bellarus and then  they go to Istanbul. These are the famous Istanbul   negotiations. Okay, this is in March, early April  of 2022, almost immediately after the war starts.   And it looks like the Ukrainians and the Russians  may be able to cut a deal. They did not cut the   deal, but they're getting closer and closer.  Things are working out very well. What happens?   Boris Johnson, with support from the United  States, of course, comes in and he tells the   Ukrainians to walk away from the negotiations.  Now, the question you want to ask yourself is   why did this happen? Yes. I I've wanted to ask  him that, but he won't he won't talk to me.   The reason it happened is that we thought that  economic sanctions would bring the Russians to   their knees and that the Ukrainians who we  had armed and trained, we meaning the West   had armed and trained between 2014 when the crisis  first broke out and 2022 when the war broke out,  

the actual war. In that in that 8-year  period, we had armed, we meaning the West,   had armed and trained the Ukrainians, and  they were a quite formidable fighting force,   as the Russians found out over the course of  2022. We believed that the Ukrainian army on   the battlefield coupled with economic sanctions  would do the Russians in. And that's why we told   uh Zalinski to walk away from the negotiations in  Istanbul. And you want to also remember that late   in the fall of that year, 2022, General Millie,  who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,   understood that the Ukrainians by that point in  time had reached the high water mark. Remember,   the Ukrainians had launched two successful  offensives against the Russians in 2022, one   in Hark, one in Hersan. And Millie said, "This is  wonderful, but it's time to cut a deal now because   as time goes by, the balance of power will shift  against Ukraine and in favor of the Russians."   Because at that point, Putin was beginning to  mobilize the Russian army in a serious way. I   think he called up 300,000 troops in uh September  of 2022. But anyway, what happened was that Millie   was told to cease and desist from making that  argument. They put Millie in the back closet,   said no more talk about cutting a deal now because  we think we've got the Russians on the ropes. And  

you remember it's in early June. I think it  was June 4th of 2023. Remember 2022 is when   the war starts. In June of 2023, that's when the  Ukrainians launch that massive offensive where   they think they're going to affect the Blitzkrieg  and bring the Russian military to its knees.   This just shows you that we thought the success  that the Ukrainians were having on the battlefield   coupled with the sanctions would allow us to  defeat Russia and knock Russia out of the ranks of   the great powers and put an end to having to deal  with Vladimir Putin who wouldn't dance to Artune.   I mean, I kind of get it conceptually and I have  no question that you're describing the thinking of   the people who made these decisions, but I think  if you just ponder like the potential consequences   of their plan, so you knock Russia out of the  ranks, the great powers, you displace Putin   somehow. What happens then? This is the biggest  country on Earth. It's diverse. It's got all   kinds of ethnic groups that get along sort of, but  like it could break apart and it's got a largest   nuclear arsenal in the world. Destabilizing Russia  could be really dangerous for everybody. Did that   occur to them? No. I I So, how stupid are they?  Incredibly. No. Look, as as I said to you before,   you know, I've studied a lot of international  relations over time and when you corner great  

powers, when you threaten their survival, you do  not want to underestimate how risky the policies   will be that they are willing to pursue. Okay?  And I think if our policy had actually worked,   if it looked like the Russians were going to be  knocked out of the ranks of the great powers,   they would have then used nuclear weapons.  Yes. Or if it did, if the government collapsed,   whatever that meant, and we succeeded in killing  Putin, which I know we've been trying to do on   and off for a long time, like what then? What if  there was a civil war, ethnic breakup of Russia?   Like how is that good for ever for the rest  of the world? It's terrible for Russia,   but what about the rest of us? It's not good for  us either. Chaos is not good, is it? Absolutely.   You're you're correct. I mean, we could have  easily lived with the Russians. Putin wanted to   have good relations with wanted to join NATO.  Yeah. It it's the idea that Putin was missing   the Soviet Union to the point that he wanted to  recreate the Soviet Union and the Soviet Empire in   East Europe bears no resemblance to what is in the  historical record or what it is explanation of it   is. It's it just crazy. And and by the way, just  to go back to Trump, I think Trump's instincts   on both China and Russia, starting with his first  term and even his second term, in the beginning,   his instincts were correct in both cases. It was  time to abandon engagement, contain China. And  

with regard to Russia, it was time to have good  relations with Russia, to end the war in Ukraine.   This is in his second term because the war didn't  take place in his first term. So I think Trump's   instincts were good. But again, Trump's problem is  that when it comes to diplomacy, uh he he has the   mightest touch in reverse and uh the end result is  that he's made a hash of things with the Russians.   So what's the motive of of European leaders of  Mcronone and Star and Mertz in Western Europe   and then the various Eastern European leaders?  Like why are they monomomaniacally focused on   Putin? I don't know for sure. It just seems to me  that they have convinced themselves uh that Putin   is the second coming of Adolf Hitler. Uh you know,  you make these arguments enough times you come to   believe them yourselves sometimes. Uh I I don't  know what they're thinking. I mean, there's just   no evidence to support this argument in terms of  what Putin has said over time or what he's written   over time. Or if you just look at the power that's  built into the Russian army, this army's had a   difficult time capturing the eastern 15th of uh  Ukraine, the idea that it's going to conquer all   of Ukraine, then roll into Eastern Europe is not a  serious argument. And again, he's never said that   he was interested in doing that. This is not the  second coming of the Vermacht. But for some reason  

the European elites have convinced themselves  that this is the case and it seems that they   won't listen to common sense uh on this issue. So  the idea is that the largest country in the world   by landmass with the most resources on earth wants  to capture overcrowded collapsing welfare states   and like do what with them? It's it's it's like  so nuts. Like what would the motive be? Why would   the Russians want any of these kind maybe Poland,  but even Poland? Why would they want that? Well,   let me offer an alternative view as to why they  wouldn't want it. You just that you just to the   one that you just described. Uh first of all,  the Russians controlled all of those countries   in Eastern and Central Europe, entire cold war,  and it did not work out very well, right? And   they didn't enjoy it actually. Yeah. The most  powerful political ideology in the on the planet   is nationalism. Yes. And nationalism is all about  sovereignty and self-determination. And whether   you're Polish, Czech, uh, Hungarian, German,  you want to control your own destiny. And the   last thing you want is another country like the  Soviet Union or now Russia invading your country.   And if you're Russia and you invade that country,  what you're going to find is a significant amount   of resistance. And just think about the Soviet  Union. They had to put down a major insurrection   in East Germany in 53. They had to invade Hungary  in 56. They had to invade Czechoslovakia in ' 68.  

They almost had to invade Poland three separate  times. Then they had to deal with the Albanians,   the Yugoslavs, and the Romanians. Right? Been  there, done that. did not work. So you fought   in you went to West Point, you served uh as an  army officer in the in the Cold War. Do you think   having studied it that Russia got a lot out of  its empire? Like was it worth it for them? The   Soviet Empire, the the Warsaw Pack, the Eastern  Block. Was that worth having? Great question,   Bill. But let me just say I was actually an Air  Force officer. I was an enlisted man in the army   before I went to West Point, but then I was an  Air Force officer. Yeah. Yeah. But well, you went   to I went to West Point. Uh you want to remember  that uh before 1947, that was when the National   Security Act uh created the Air Force Academy. Uh  there was no and created an independent air force   that the Air Force was actually the Army Airore,  right? So West Point provided officers to the Army   and to the Air Force. And when I graduated from  West Point in 1970, there were a set of limited   conditions under which you could go into the Air  Force and I qualified. So I was in the Air Force   rather than the Army. The vast majority of my  classmates went uh into the Army, but I went   into the Air Force. But I had been in the Army as  an enlisted man before I went to West Point. Uh so   I actually, including my West Point time, spent  10 years in the military. Wow. But to go back to  

your excellent question about the Soviet Union and  its experience in Eastern Europe, the reason that   the Soviet Union ended up in Eastern Europe is  because on June 22nd, 1941, Nazi Germany launched   Operation Barbar Roa for the express purpose  of destroying the Soviet Union. Thankfully,   the Soviets won the war. But to win the war, they  had to drive across Eastern and Central Europe   in to Germany. You remember it was the Red Army  that went into Berlin uh in April of 45. Exactly.   And that's when Hitler, of course, committed  suicide. And that war ended on May 8th, 1945. And   the Soviets ended up, needless to say, occupying  virtually all of Eastern Europe. But what happens   after that is that the Cold War breaks out and  you have the United States on the other side   of what we came to call the Iron Curtain, called  the intraGerman border, and the Soviet Union uh   on the other side. And I think that there were two  reasons that the Soviets had a vested interest and   we had a vested interest in keeping that status  quo. One is we didn't trust each other and we were   afraid if we got out the Soviets would conquer  more territory and they were afraid that if  

they got out we would move eastward. That was one  reason. But the other reason that we both stayed   was the German problem. You want to remember that  World War I and World War II were both all about   Germany. Very important to understand that. We  forgot that in the Cold War because the Soviets   defeated Germany. Nevertheless, what happens after  1945 is that Germany is cut in half. The Soviets   take one side and we take the other side. And most  people don't talk about this in polite company,   but we solved the German problem. We cut the  country into two parts. Exactly. They occupied   the Soviets one half, we occupied the other half.  And although the Cold War was somewhat dangerous,   it was altogether pretty peaceful as these things  go. I mean, we did have the Cuban Missile Crisis   and a handful of crises over Berlin. So, I don't  want to overstate the case, but we never came   close to having a serious war in the heart  of Europe. And we solved the German problem.   But that's why the Soviets stayed. But what  eventually happens is two things and this   leads to the end of the cold war and the end of  the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe. Number one,   the Soviet and the Soviet economy begins to run  ground. Uh it really starts in the mid 1960s and   it accelerates in the uh early 1980s and of course  Gorbachov comes along and the rest is history. But  

it's it's fundamental flaws in the Soviet economy  that eventually brings the Soviet Union down. But   the second thing that happens, getting back to  what we were talking about before, is that the   Soviets understand that occupying Eastern Europe  and Central Europe is incredibly expensive. Yes.   Right. And the people don't want us there. Right.  And it's time to go home. And once you go home,   a good idea would be to stay out. Right. So  it wasn't a net benefit. It's not like they   stripped it of its resources and got rich doing  it. Well, they did strip a lot of resources   out of Germany uh early in the coal war, but  afterwards, no, it was industrial resources,   but I mean, they didn't they weren't there for  the coal. No, no, no, no. It was not economically   a net benefit. That's what I'm saying, right? It  was not it's not a win. Yeah. Yeah. By the way,   if you just think about the collapse of the  great empires, you know, we read about the   great empires like the British Empire, the Belgian  Empire, the French Empire, the Dutch Empire, and   so forth and so on. They've all gone away. Okay?  And the question you want to ask yourself is why   did they all go away? Yes, there are two reasons  that are directly related to what we're talking   about. Number one is nationalism. These people  in places like India and the Congo, you name it.   Yes. And this was true of the United States back  in the day, right? 1776 did not want the British   or the French or the Portuguese telling them how  their politics should be run. They wanted to be  

independent nation states. What I'm telling you is  that nationalism, this incredibly powerful force   was the number one reason for bringing down these  empires. The second reason was that the economic   benefits once the industrial revolution comes  melt away. Right before the industrial revolution,   we're in a world where commerce is of great  importance. You can exploit these colonies   and they make a lot of sense economically. But  by the 20th century, by the time the industrial   revolution is in full swing, these empires are  basically an albatross around your neck. India is   an albatross around Britain's neck in my opinion.  And you'll notice just going to who the powerful   countries are in the 20th century, Germany, the  United States, and Russia/The Soviet Union. The   only one that has an empire is Germany. And it's  a tiny empire that it acquires in Africa in the   late 1800s. Yeah. Tiny. Tiny. Namibia. Yeah. Yeah.  Exactly. They're not a major imperial power. So   the three behemoths on the planet, Soviet Union,  United States, and Germany do not have empires.   Britain, France, Belgium, they have empires. And  what good are those empires? The the economic   benefits are small. So it's really the aesthetic  benefits that they were after. Like they just  

they fall in love. They're sentimental about their  empires. Absolutely. But they're not justified by   the math. Yeah. They're not justified by the math.  And and then go back to the nationalism part of   the story, right? You know, when you occupy these  places, you run into resistance. Yeah. Vietnam,   French experience in Vietnam, American experience  in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Algeria, right? That's   exactly what you run into. You know, I've in  1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, um,   everybody said, "This is the end of the world. The  Soviets are on the march. we're in deep trouble   uh and uh we have to do something to counter the  Soviets. I said at the time, this is dead wrong.   This is wonderful news for us. If you're arms  racing with the Soviets, if you're engaged in   a security competition with the Soviets, what  you want them to do is jump into a place like   Afghanistan, just like they should have been happy  that we went into Vietnam, right? You're jumping   into a quagmire. You said that out loud in 79.  I said it out loud, but there was no uh internet   at the time. There was no Tucker. So, you have a  long history of countercultural pronouncements,   huh? Well, how did people respond when you said  that? Because I mean, even I remember I was 10   years old. I remember that vividly. It was It was  hysteria over the invasion of Afghanistan. Yeah.   Yeah. No, no, you should be h in fact, you want  to know something? Just to go to Putin. If you   really want to do Putin in, you should welcome in  him into the western part of Ukraine where there  

are all those ethnic Ukrainians. Exactly. Who  will put up a huge amount of resistance cause   the Russians untold trouble, right? That's  completely agree. You know, I I often say   the two principal obstacles to aggression today  are number one, nuclear weapons and number two,   nationalism. Yes. If you really think about it,  invading other countries and trying to, you know,   do social engineering is going to get you into a  lot of trouble. And I know and for all the hate   um much of it so welld deserved toward Israel now  part of me always feels sorry for Israel because I   I don't think they're brilliant at all. I don't  think they're even very clever because they're   ignoring the lessons that you're just describing  now which don't ever change which is over hubris   leads to destruction. Overreach territorial  overreach always weakens you. You can hold Gaza   for 65 years or whatever. It's not even not even  60 years actually. and uh the West Bank and all   that stuff. But like in the end, Lebanon, Israel  is kind of ensuring its own destruction by its   behavior right now. And I feel sorry for them.  They don't seem to know that. Well, they have   Let me make two points on this. The Israelis  have no sense of the limits of power. Yes,   exactly. And we have a lot of that. We know we do.  You know, right? But the Israelis have no sense uh  

of the limits of military power. They they think  you can just pound people into submission. And   you can do that sometimes, but most of the time  you can't. Second point I would make to you is if   you think about the whole Zionist enterprise, you  go back to 1900 and ramp forward to the present.   It's an amazing accomplishment that small numbers  of European Jews coming out of Europe uh could go   to the Middle East and could carve out a state, a  Jewish state in a sea of Arabs. Yes. Palestinians.   It's it's really quite remarkable. Reviving a  dead language along the way. Now, the whole thing   is amazing. I totally agree. Yeah. But in uh the  early years, certainly up until 1967, the Israelis   have a really powerful sense of the limits of what  they could accomplish and they are very careful,   right? Uh they don't have the United States as a  great power ally at the time. Uh there's no Israel   lobby of any consequence. certainly before 1948.  Uh, and they're in a sea of hostile neighbors.   So they have to be very cautious. They have to  be tactically and strategically smart. But what  

happens to Israel over time is not only do the  guard rails come off or maybe put it in slightly   different language, not only do the checks come  off, but they develop this incredibly powerful   military, right, because of help from the United  States. And of course, this is where the Israel   lobby comes in, right? But they become a Goliath.  They look like a David to begin with. If you think   about it, but over time that David turns into  Goliath and there are no guard rails, right? The   United States will not only sanction anything they  do, it will support what they do with material   resources and protect them diplomatically. Just  think about the genocide in Gaza. I mean, here   we have a people that was a victim of one of the  greatest genocides in recorded history not long   ago, committing genocide against the Palestinians  in Gaza. And the United States is complicit in   this genocide both under the Biden administration  and under the Trump administration. This is truly   remarkable. And it it just goes to show you that  Israel can do almost anything and we protect   them and we provide them with huge amounts of  weaponry. Uh and this has not worked to Israel's  

advantage and a and and in a very important way  the lobby which is so essential for making this   relationship work the way it does is undermining  Israel. All these people like Bill Aman who think   that they're doing wonderful things for Israel,  that they're protecting Israel, are living in a   fool's paradise. The best thing that could happen  to Israel is if Donald Trump could actually get   tough with them, read them the riot act. And that  was true of many previous presidents, people like   Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, these people were  not anti-semmites. They actually were phosites   of the first order and they cared about Israel's  security. They just thought that Israel was going   about providing for its own security in the most  foolish ways and they wanted to crack down on the   Israelis. But they couldn't do that because the  lobby made it impossible to do. And the end result   is that Israel is in a deep hole. And what is it  doing? Digging deeper. Why? Because it can get   away with it. And because it believes that there's  got to be some magic military formula that we can   find to win against Hezbollah, to win against  Hamas, to win against Iran, and to have absolute   security. None of these people are parents cuz  a parent would know like buying your children   vodka probably not a good long-term strategy for  their health and happiness. Like that's basically  

what we've done for Israel. just abetted all their  worst impulses, backs stopped them when they get   into trouble, made excuses when they get arrested  or hauled into the principal's office, just acted   like a hysterical single mom. My baby didn't do  it. You know what I mean? And like the kid just   becomes increasingly unruly and self-destructive.  Like that's exactly what we're watching. I think   I think Tucker, what we're saying here, and  this gets back to our conversation about how   European leaders think about Putin as Hitler  and they think about this great Russian threat.   And when we talk now about the Israelis that  there are just a lot of people who are not   thinking straight these days. It's really quite  remarkable. What is that? I agree with you. What   is that? I don't know. I mean it's a Have you seen  anything like it in all the years you've been No,   not at all. Not at all. I mean, first of all, in  in the mainstream media, uh, during the Cold War,   we had a much more vibrant and open-ended debate  about foreign policy than we do now. Uh, we have a   big debate now, but it's sort of the alternative  media platforms. Yes. Like your show uh, Judge   Napoleon and all these other shows uh, on one  side and the mainstream media on the other side.   But inside the mainstream media, I it's truly  amazing the extent to which people parrot this   conventional wisdom and prevent voices that get  heard on the alternative media from intruding   into the main such a narrow band. It's not even  a debate really. Yeah. And the thing is that most  

people in the United States and I believe around  the world for sure understand that what they're   hearing from the mainstream media and what they're  hearing from their leaders makes no sense. And   uh this of course is why someone like Trump gets  elected, right? Because Trump says things that are   counter to the conventional wisdom. Forget  what he actually does when he's in office.   He ran on a platform that there's something  fundamentally wrong and the elites are bankrupt   and people voted for him. Uh and of course people  who think that the establishment whether you're   talking about you know the foreign policy makers,  people at think tanks or in the mainstream media,   if you think that they're bankrupt in terms  of how they're thinking about world politics,   you're correct. Uh but it's not even like a a  disagree. It's I listen to some of the stuff and I   it's not even that I disagree. It's that I'm just  confused by how anyone could think that. Just like   basic observations about life that no rational  person would deny. Don't push your enemies too   far. Don't corner people because you cause them  to have no option but to do something crazy.   G give your opponent some wiggle room. Like try  to reach a nonviolent accommodation if possible.   Don't if you love someone, don't help them destroy  themselves. These are just like ob obvious like   life lessons that everyone knows and yet the  people who run these countries seem determined   to ignore them. So like what is that? I don't  know. And they're not all dumb. I know some of  

them. They're not dumb. They're not low IQ. It's  like they're under a spell or delusion or I don't   know what I I'm sincerely confused. And it seems  global or western. Anyway, it it's western. No,   there's no question about it. It's western. It's  Europe. Yeah. And it's the United States. I don't   believe it's true in East Asia. I think if you  go talk to the Japanese and the South Koreans,   Totally. Right. They they think basically like  we do, they won't say that. In the Middle East,   the same thing. Oh, sure. Sure. Sure. Uh I don't  I I simply don't have a good explanation. But just   to add to your point, we also just have a lot of  evidence over the past decade or so that thinking   the way the elite has been thinking does not lead  to a good ending. It's it's not like we've had   great successes. It's not like the Israelis have  had great successes. You know what I mean? Um I   I kind of don't get it. Uh so where Okay, so um  back just back to Ukraine. Sorry, I get I have too   many questions. How do you think that what's the  most likely resolution to that? And when if you   had to guess, I think you're going to get a frozen  conflict. And what's going to happen here is that   the Russians are almost certainly going to end  up conquering the four Oblasts that they have now   enexed. Uh they fully control one of those Oblas,  Luhansk. Uh the one that gets the most attention.  

uh in the media today uh dhansk uh they control  85% of that uh donets u and uh they control about   75% of zaposia and about 75% of heran I think they  will continue the war until they fully control all   the territory in those four oblas which again  they've enexed uh along with Crimea I would not   be surprised if they uh actually end up taking  more territory. I wouldn't be surprised if they   take Odessa uh and Arkefe as well. Uh but that  remains to be seen. U I think it's quite clear   that their progress on the battlefield has been  relatively slow and it's in large part not because   the Ukrainian ground forces are formidable uh  troops but because of drones. I think drones have   made it very difficult for either side to move.  But I think the Russians will end up conquering   a huge slice of eastern Ukraine and at some point  the Ukrainians and the Russians will stop firing   each at each other. There will be an armistice.  This will be the frozen conflict. Ukraine will   be a dysfunctional rump state uh which it already  is. Uh and it will not join NATO. So the Russians   will have achieved their major objective of  preventing Ukraine from joining NATO. But the  

problem is Tucker, you will end up with a frozen  conflict. And the Ukrainians will never accept the   fact that Russia has annexed this territory.  They will not see it as Russian territory.   they will believe that this is sacred Ukrainian  territory that has been illegally taken away from   them and that they need to get back. So what this  tells you is you will have poisonous relations   between Russia on one hand and Ukraine on the  other. And given that the Ukrainians are joined   at the hip with the Europeans, this will mean that  you are likely to have poisonous relations between   Russia and Ukraine and the Europeans for the  foreseeable future. This is a disastrous situation   because it's easy to imagine how that frozen  conflict turns into a hot conflict. Once again,   I'm not saying that's likely, but there's one  other very important dimension to this that we   don't want to lose sight of, and that is that  superimposed on the Ukraine Russia conflict are   six other potential flash points. One is Bellarus,  two is Kinenrad, three is the Baltic Sea,   four is the melting Arctic, five is Muldova, and  six is the Black Sea. These are all potential  

flash points where you could get conflict between  Russia on one side and the Europeans on the other   side or the Ukrainians on the other side. So,  Eastern Europe is going to be a very dangerous   place for the foreseeable future. The amount  of armaments moved in to that region by the   rest of the world is just beyond comprehension,  too. So, it's a incredibly wellarmed. People are   still using Alban, you know, Envero's weapons  stockpiles to fight wars around the world. So,   like when you move a lot of weapons into a region,  the the tail on that is very long. Absolutely.   And uh the Ukrainians will go to great lengths  over time to get more and more weaponry. I mean,   you have to understand that from Ukraine's point  of view, Russia is an existential threat. You and   I have paid a lot of attention in the previous  conversation to the fact that from Russia's   point of view, what's happening in Ukraine is an  existential threat, which it certainly is. But if   you're a Ukrainian leader and you see what's just  happened and the Russians are closer than ever to   you and they've taken territory of yours that you  want back, you're going to see the Russians as   an existential threat. And the Ukrainians will  therefore go to great lengths to do everything   they can to work with the Europeans and hopefully  from their point of view with the United States   to solidify their position to get armaments to  protect themselves, which you can just marry  

to the point you were making. No, that's right.  and and and all of Eastern Europe, if you're the   Romanians, the Hungarians, the Poles, I mean,  they're all completely afraid of the Russians.   And I get it. Take this a step further. What about  nuclear weapons? Right? As we were saying before,   this conflict has done enormous damage to NATO  and the American military footprint in Europe is   shrinking. And one could argue that we're going  to have remarkably few uh troops in Europe in   the foreseeable future. Yes. Okay. Who knows for  sure how that will play out, but the importance   of pivoting to Asia, the problems that we have in  the Middle East, Europe is really number three on   the list. And getting out of there will be a high  priority or getting large numbers of troops out of   there will be a high priority. Shifting the burden  to the Europeans. But the problem is the Germans   don't have nuclear weapons. The Poles don't have  nuclear weapons. And if you believe the Russians   are 10 feet tall, and of course the Poles, you  know, it's in their mother's milk to believe   that the Russians are 10 ft tall. And they're  excitable. Yes. So, and and and the incentives   for Poland to get nuclear weapons are very great.  Oh, for sure. Oh, they'll get nuclear weapons,   don't you think? I don't know. If Pakistan has  them, Poland's Poland's going to get them. Poland   the industrial power of Europe now. Yeah, they're  going to have nuclear weapons, I would think. And   the Germans, right? They're going to have an  incentive to get nuclear weapons, right? And  

then the question you have to ask yourself is,  if you're the Russians and you're watching the   Germans, remember these are the Germans, World War  I, World War II, you're watching the Germans get   nuclear weapons, how do you think about that? Uh,  and if you see the Poles getting nuclear weapons,   how do you think about that? Right? So the  potential for danger here is just not to be   underestimated. I mean, we were talking before  about the Sergey Caraganov scenario where the   Russians use nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe  because the Ukrainians are attacking mother Russia   with drones and missiles. Here we're talking about  a situation where Poland and Germany might go   down the nuclear road and asking ourselves the  question, what would be the Russian reaction? Before I ask you about what's happening in Iran,  I a mystery that I I'd love to hear explained.   Why is it that the very same people who pushed  Donald Trump to war, regime change war against   Iran are literally the same people who pushed him  to continue the regime change war against Russia,   the war against Putin? Well, I think there  are two reasons. Um number one is that   um the influence of Israel on the American foreign  policy establishment cannot be underestimated in   large part because of the lobby and Israel and  the lobby have a deep-seated interest in making  

sure that the United States is militarily involved  all over the world because they want an American   military uh that's at the ready if Israel  gets into trouble. So whenever you talk about   restraint like the Quincy Institute in Washington  talks about restraint, this raises the hackles   of the lobby, you notice there was this big not  because America's on the verge of being invaded,   but because which is not, but because Israel  might need the fire department to show up in   an emergency and we've got to pay for that.  Yes. You want a big fire department that uh is   uh fighting wars and is honed uh to win those  wars. Uh and this is in Israel's interest. Uh   you want I'll show you a good piece of evidence  that supports this point. Uh there's a recent   article in the New York Times about Israeli  intelligence uh going into overdrive and tracking   the activities of particular individuals. And in  the New York Times article, in the United States,   in the United States, yes. And in the New York  Times article, it was pointed out that the two   people who have attract apparently have attracted  the most attention or Steve Witco uh because they   want to know what he's up to and Elbridge KBY. And  since Elbridge KBY works mainly on China issues,   the Times speculated on why uh Israel would  be so interested in keeping a careful eye  

on Elbridge Colby. And the Times actually said  at the end of the piece, it's probably because   he's a restrainer, right? He's interested in a  restrained foreign policy. Colby does not want   to be fighting wars everywhere. Uh he once told  me that he was opposed to the Iraq war back in   2003. He wants to concentrate on containing China,  but he's not interested in fighting in Ukraine.   He's a restrainer. And of course, the Israelis do  not like restrainers. They do not like the Quincy   Institute, right? So, they're allowed to just  spy on American citizens, but then continue to   receive our tax dollars in order to fund spying  on us. That's Well, the answer is yes to that.   Or at least it's been yes to that in the past.  But in answer to your question, the first reason   here that we are uh uh that our our engagement uh  in Ukraine is pushed by the same people who are   pushing the Iran war is because of Israel and the  Israel lobby and the influence that the lobby and   Israel have and seeing the United States involved  in places like Ukraine. The second reason is you   have lots of Americans, Jews and non-Jews, who  have roots in Ukraine and those people believe   strongly that Ukraine should be a sovereign state  and that the Russians are the bad guys and they  

believe that we should support the Ukrainians  hook, line, and sinker. And the journalist Steve   Kinszer has written a book on this that I believe  is coming out later this year that explains this   phenomenon in great detail. Stephen, his new book  shows how many Americans inside of the foreign   policy establishment who have roots, family roots  in Eastern Europe or in Ukraine or in Russia are   deeply committed to supporting Ukraine in its  war against Russia, which they see as the bad   guy. Yeah. It was right around 1905 that there  were quite a few loud voices in America saying,   "Let's not have mass immigration from Eastern  Europe because it's going to cause us massive   problems down the line and they were dismissed  as crazy." Just want to say that out loud. Um,   well, anytime you have immigration, you run into  this problem. I was recently in Miami, Florida,   and uh it's quite clear that one of the principal  reasons that we now have our gun sites on Cuba,   which I think is ridiculous, insane, is is  because of the Cuban-American community, which   wields significant influence inside the United  States, much like the Israel lobby. Yeah. I mean,   I' I wouldn't I've spent a lot of time I mean, I  lived in Washington most of my life, spent a lot   of time at the White House and in Congress.  I never once lobbied for Swedish interests.   It just never occurred to me though. My name  is Carlson. I have blue eyes. But uh yeah, I  

didn't I just I felt like that would be wrong. Do  you know what I mean? It's disgusting. Come here   and then lobby on behalf of a foreign country,  whatever that country is. It's disgusting. I agree   completely. I'm I'm against dual citizenship, of  course. Right. I think if you come to the United   States, you become an American. You should have  American. You have a German last name. Have you   ever lobbied on behalf of Germany? No. I I don't  consider myself German American or Irish American   because I'm also partly Irish American. I consider  myself American. I do too. Yeah. I think when you   come to the United States, there's and you become  a citizen, there's a social contract involved   and that social contract involves becoming an  American and uh becoming an American first year by   definition. Uh otherwise don't come to the United  States or you know get a temporary visa which is   fine. But if you become an American, I believe  that uh you should not be lobbying on uh the uh on   the part of other countries whether it's for Cuba  or China or uh or or or India or Israel. Yeah. And   I think uh it's within bounds to to say that as an  American. I think I have a right to say that. And   uh and I say that, by the way, as somebody who's  been a big proponent of immigration over time. Uh,   I'm glad they let all those Russian Jews into  the United States or East European Jews into   the United States. I think immigration is what  made the United States great. If you go back   and read about what happened in this country  uh, you know, after we got our independence  

uh, in 1783 and certainly in the 19th and  early 20th century, all the immigration uh,   is what turned us into the superpower that we are  today. So immigration is a good thing but it has   to be done in a very careful way. Well sex is a  good thing, eating is a good thing but you know   you keep them within certain boundaries so they  remain good things and if you're going to have   immigration particularly at scale you have to have  rules and the number one rule has to be transfer   your allegiance from the country of origin to  the country you live in now. That's just got to   be rule one and if you can't hold to that rule you  can't have immigration. It seems to me, right? I   think that illegal immigration is an absolutely  terrible thing. And I think it's damaged many   Americans views towards immigration in general.  I agree. Me too. Number one. And number two,   uh although I'm in favor of immigration, I  do think if you come to the United States,   you become an American and only an American. You  give up, you know, your German citizenship or your   Russian citizenship or whatever. Uh, and I think  what about working as a as a guard at a prison   camp in Israel on a volunteer basis like Jeffrey  Goldberg of the Atlantic did as an American?   Is it is it okay if you're a leading American  foreign policy thinker to volunteer as a prison   camp guard in a foreign country or is that there's  something kind of maybe disloyal about that? Well,   this is a particularly egregious situation. Sir, I  can't help bring that up. Here here's a guy who is  

fully in favor of using the American military  to fight wars on Israel's behalf. But when it   came for t came time for him to serve in the  military, he served in the Israeli military,   not the American mil camp guard. Something  deeply wrong about sick. Yeah. And of course,   he is the editor of one of the most influential  magazines in the United States where he's in a   position where he can control the content of  that magazine in ways that support Israel.   And you can rest assured that anybody who's who  criticizes Israel in a meaningful way is uh not   going to appear on the pages of the Atlantic. How  have you been treated in in the Atlantic? Okay. Well, there is the period before uh Jeffrey  Goldberg and since Jeffrey Goldberg,   I certainly have not appeared in the pages  of the Atlantic since Jeffrey Goldberg, but   uh beforehand you want to remember, as I think  you do, that uh our lobby piece, the piece that   Steve Wal and I wrote on the Israel Lobby, which  appeared in 2006 in the London Review of Books,   was originally supposed to appear in the Atlantic  Monthly, but it did not uh because the Atlantic   got cold feet uh and refused to publish it. Uh but  they did run a very nice piece on me by Bob Kaplan   uh after that experience. So I can't say that  I've always been treated badly by thought Kaplan  

was a very reasonable guy at one point actually  I thought of course the the you know the the the   previous editor who Michael Kelly who I have  no question would have run that piece because   he was brave and honest was uh killed covering  the Iraq war. Yes I remember waged on behalf   of Israel. So it all kind of comes together. But  Jeff Goldberg is another one of those people who   thinks he's doing good for Israel. Yeah. He he he  thinks that behaving the way he does in terms of   supporting Israel at every turn and suppressing  criticism of Israel as best he can is in Israel's   interest. I just want to make it clear. I think  he's fundamentally wrong. And I think it's people   like him and the Bill Amans of the world who are  doing enormous damage to Israel. Again, you're a   parent. If you treated your children who whom you  love as much as Jeffrey Goldberg loves Israel,   you love your kids. If you treated them like he  treats Israel, your kids would all be in rehab.   Correct. I agree. Excuse every fault.  Attack anyone who points out their   shortcomings. Like you would you would wreck  those kids. Mhm. Where does the Iran war go?

I think at this point in time where we are is that  President Trump is desperate to get a settlement.   He understands the economic consequences of  this war going on for a few more months with   the straits closed would be disastrous. He's got  to get a deal. And not just simply for economic   reasons, but for political reasons as well. uh  the midterm elections are coming up and he runs   the great danger that if the economy is tanked by  November uh that both the House and the Senates   will be run by uh the Democrats and he will get  impeached and found to be guilty. So he wants   to avoid that and of course he wants to avoid  crashing the international economy for obvious   reasons. So he's desperate. You can see it in his  face. You can see it in his actions. The problem   that he faces is that he can't get the Iranians  to accept what is from an American and an Israeli   point of view a favorable deal. The Iranians  are now in the driver's seat. The Iranians   started this war on February 28th of this year  in a much weaker position than they are in now.   They've actually done quite well in the war.  Uh as we saw when they attacked Israel a few   days ago. Here you have a situation where Israel  did not attack Iran. Iran felt that it was free  

to attack Israel. And Iran has made it clear it's  more than willing to go up the escalation ladder   with us and with Israel. They feel like they're  in the driver's seat. So the Iranians won't cut   President Trump any slack. they won't give him  a deal that'll allow him to walk away from this.   And again, he's under everpresent pressure on the  economic front to shut this one down. At the same   time, the Israelis will not cooperate with him  either. What Trump really wants to do is cut a   deal that basically accepts the fact that Iran  won. He can't change Iran's position and he's   got to accept the fact that Iran has won and cut  a sweetheart deal for Iran. But the Israelis under   no circumstances want him to do this and BB is  resisting. So what's happening here is Trump is   being pushed from one side by BB and he's being  pushed on the other side by the inexraable forces   of the international economy as it reacts to the  shutdown straits. Okay. So what's happening is   that desperate Donald Trump is beginning to put  pressure on the Israelis because he can't put   pressure on the Iranians. He's putting pressure on  the Israelis in ways that he's never done before.   So, he had this conversation where he said really  terrible things about Prime Minister Netanyahu  

last Monday. This was on June 1st, right? And  uh he he's been really playing hard ball with   the Israelis in ways that we've not seen before.  And you can tell that BB Netanyahu understands   this. He understands that Trump is desperate  and that Trump is putting real pressure on him.   Now Netanyahu has resisted to a large extent,  not completely, but to a large extent up to now,   but I would maintain that what's likely to happen  as we move forward is that that international   economy is going to continue to put pressure on  Trump. And because he can't put pressure on the   Iranians who are in the driver's seat, he's going  to put pressure on the Israelis in ways that he   has never done before. So the question you have  to ask yourself is what is this growing conflict   between the United States and in particular  Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu going to   look like moving forward? You saw yesterday Mark  Levin who's, you know, a longtime Trump hater,   then became Trump's closest political ally, start  to attack Trump for wavering on the question of   backing Israel. The second Trump criticized BB,  Mark Levin attacks Trump. Can Trump realistically,   do you think, fight a a battle, a rhetorical  battle against Netanyahu and win given that  

his support now in the United States  politically is only Zionists are kind   of the only people who still support Trump? Let  me ask you a question. What's the alternative? take this to a really really crazy place, you  know, where all of a sudden the war comes home.   I mean, there's some attack on the homeland  and all of a sudden you have to, you know,   you go full post 911 where the whole country is  like, you know, mobilized against Iran. I mean,   that seems more likely to me. But, you know, but  even there, what are you going to do? Let let's   just assume that there's some incident somewhere  that incentivizes us to really crush Iran. How do   we do that? You want to understand that we cannot  do it with boots on the ground. Right. Right. That   that's out. Number one. Number two, in terms of  restarting the air war, been there, tried that,   did not work out very well. Furthermore, we used  up huge amounts of our precious weaponry. Right?   That's another one of the reasons Trump doesn't  want to go back to the air war, right? So,   what are we going to do? Use nuclear weapons  against Iran? I don't think so. Right? Trump   has no option. That that's the point here. This  is what I'm saying to you. If you think about the   situation he's in, he he's been unable to coersse  the Iranians. And the Iranians are feeling their   oaths. They're feeling powerful, and they're not  willing to compromise. and they understand that  

the longer this war goes on, the more leverage  they have. So, they're tough to coersse and the   Israelis, Trump just has to do something with them  as he's crushed by these international economic   considerations. And if he doesn't, we're all going  to go off a cliff economically. The economic and   political consequences are going to be disastrous.  There's just all sorts of evidence of that. And if   the Israelis really have an in-your-face attitude  towards Trump and they start to bomb Iran,   what are the Iranians going to do? They'll  shut down the Red Sea. They'll go after the   UAE. They'll go after Saudi Arabia. They'll play  hard ball. And that'll just make the economic   situation even worse. So, what what can Trump  do? I I think, you know, who knows for sure,   but my surmise is looking at this is that Trump  has really no choice but to play hard ball with   Netanyahu in ways that he has never done and in  ways that no American president has ever done with   an Israeli prime minister. Trump's devotion to  Israel is so slavish that it's just it's just hard   to imagine. It's hard to picture that. I mean, I  I pray for that. I pray for sovereignty. we should   have a country whose leaders make decisions based  on what's best for America. I just can't picture   that. I can't picture Trump actually threatening  to defund Israel, which is what it would take.  

You'd have to say that we're not no more money  for you if you if you keep hitting Beirut. I mean,   what are you doing? Yeah. He would have to play  hard ball in ways that you're just saying you   find unimaginable and which I find in a certain  sense unimaginable as well. But what you want   to understand and you understood this before  February 28th and you told Trump that he would   be remarkably foolish to start a war against Iran.  He didn't listen to you. He didn't listen to his   adviserss. He didn't listen his advisers didn't  tell him that. Okay. They're cowards. But yeah,   but anyway, he started this war. He knew.  Yeah. And he is in deep deep trouble. As is   BB Netanyahu, by the way. Right. He's in deep  deep trouble, too. Just like Trump is. Uh he's   in a no-win situation. If he bucks Trump, he's  in real trouble. And if he doesn't buck Trump,   he's going to be clobbered inside Israel because  his critics, the opposition, is going after him   for being a pussycat, for not being willing to say  no to Trump. Uh so if he doesn't say no to Trump,   right, uh he'll get clobbered. Who are the  Israelis who are like the most flagrant welfare   case in world history? I mean, way more dependent  on our government than any like welfare queen in   Detroit has ever been. Like without us, they're  done. Literally done. What world are they living  

in where they're like, "Well, don't take that from  Trump." Well, the You don't have a job, son. Look,   the argument you can make, just building on  what you said is that the Israeli body politic,   and here we're talking mainly about the Israeli  elites, will understand what you just said,   which is they can't survive in a meaningful way  without American support and that they are running   the risk of losing American support if they don't  cooperate with Trump. If they don't cooperate with   Trump, they run the risk and the threat of  losing American support will be sufficient   to convince the Israelis to play ball with Trump.  So the argument there is that Trump can play hard   ball with the Israelis in ways that no other  president, including Trump himself, have ever   played hard ball with the Israelis and that it'll  work because of the logic that you just spun out.   I talked to someone in Israel yesterday who's  smart and uh very smart who said there's no   sense of that at all. Israel, the average Israeli  support for the war was over 90% in Israel was   93%. And the average Israeli thinks that they're  running the world, that they have total control   and that they need nobody and that if the US  pulls, you know, we don't need the US actually.   They're too many strings attached when in fact  there are no strings attached, but they're they're   just so high on their own supply that they don't  see at all their vulnerabilities. They're really  

at peak hubris. That's this person told me. Well,  there is some of that for sure and there's good   reason for them to think that they own us because  they have owned us. Yes. Uh but I do think we are   at a very special point in history here. I I think  again you cannot underestimated underestimate what   a colossal blunder President Trump and Prime  Minister Netanyahu made on February 28th. And   the chickens are coming home to roost now. And  I believe that Netanyahu's who's had a handful   of conversations with Trump fully understands the  pressure that Trump is under. Right. And I believe   other people in the administration are talking to  the Israelis and telling them that. And it's easy   for the opposition to Netanyahu or on the outside  and who would like to run Netanyahu out of office   so they can move into his seat uh to criticize  Netanyahu. But I think even with regard to them,   they will eventually get the message.  Uh and if they don't, uh Trump then has   two choices. he can basically cut off aid to  Israel and distance ourselves, distance the   United States from Israel's in in ways that was  unimaginable, you know, a month ago. Yes. Uh or   we can go off the cliff economically. That's  the choice here. But either way, we're going  

to emerge from this with Iran, the government of  Iran, controlling the flow of commodities out of   the Persian Gulf. Yeah. I mean I mean that's  crazy. That was not true on February 27th,   but it's going to be true going forward. Period.  Yeah. First of all, we had four demands uh you   know regarding uh uh Iran's missiles, support for  Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, um regard to their   nuclear program, and with regard to regime change.  Those were the four goals that we started with.   uh none of them have been achieved. That's the  first point. Second point is your point that   they now control the straight of war moves. Right.  Third point I would make to you is they're going   to come out of this in better economic shape in  part because they control the straight of Hormuz   but also because a lot of sanctions are going to  be lifted off them right and that's good news for   them. So economically they're going to be in a  superior position after February 28th than before   February 28th. Finally, you want to remember that  on February 27th, we had a basing structure in   the Gulf and we had an alliance structure in the  Gulf that looked quite formidable. All those bases   have either been destroyed or badly damaged. And  that alliance structure that we had with the six  

Gulf states has been wrecked in very important  ways. And it's not clear that we can stay in   the Gulf. So if you think about it, I told Trump  this going in. We're this is going to result in   us leaving the Middle East. We're going to have  less influence in the Middle East by the end. It   was so obvious. Yeah. Well, I you and I agree on  that that so many of these things are so obvious,   but yet so many really smart people, you know,  people who went to fancy universities, have fancy   degrees, worked for fancy law firms or what have  you, were successful in business, you name it,   uh don't see obvious things that people like us  see in the foreign policy realm. I, again, getting   back to your question before, I I can't explain  it. Not to get sidetracked, but since you've seen   more of it than I have, do you think the the Well,  I know the answer. To what extent has the caliber   of public policy, public intellectual declined  over the past 50 years? Oh, drastically. There's   just no question about that. Uh if you uh uh think  about the discourse, right? Uh, we live in a world   uh I'm sorry to interrupt. I This is uh from the  president from the White House. I've just been   informed by our great military that last night the  Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated   Apache helicopters while patrolling the street  of Hormuz. There were two pilots involved. Both   are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United  States must of necessity respond to this attack.  

I'm sure that he's going to respond and I would  bet a lot of money that the Iranians will respond.   The Iranians have made it clear that every time  either Israel or the United States or a country   like the UAE attacks Iran, uh Iran will not just  simply retaliate in kind, but it will retaliate   more forcefully than the attacker uh did when  it hit Iran to start with. As a graduate of West   Point and a former Air Force officer, what is your  assessment of the US military's capabilities, you   know, 4 months into this war with Iran? Well, the  United States military is an incredibly formidable   fighting force, but uh that doesn't mean that it  can uh win a war against Iran. We certainly can't   decisively defeat Iran. And in terms of going up  the escalation ladder, which is what we're talking   about here, uh the United States cannot trump Iran  as we go up the escalation ladder. Uh Iran has a   huge inventory of missiles and drones. It operates  in a target-rich environment. And if we go after   targets inside of Iran, you can rest assured  that the Iranians will find targets to go after   uh inside of uh you know, American controlled  areas. Uh and we don't end up coming out on top.  

I mean, let's watch what happens with President  Trump. Is this going to improve our situation? No,   not at all. I don't understand how four years into  the Ukraine war, the United States could be this   far behind in drone technology and why we'd have  all these aircraft carriers under construction   when it's obvious that aircraft carriers cannot  be the main means by which we project force in   the world. It just doesn't I mean we can't even  use them in this conflict meaningfully. So like   why is it seem impossible for our military to  respond to technological changes in a quick   way? Uh I think you want to remember that the Iran  war I me that the Ukraine war started in 2022 and   really for the first two years it was not clear  that drones mattered too much. So that takes you   up to let's say 2024. Fair. Uh and I remember I  argued that the key weapon on the battlefield was   artillery. Uh it was the king of battle and  what really mattered was in Ukraine this is   uh was the balance of artillery on the two  sides and I paid hardly any attention to drones.   Uh if I were writing about the balance  of power uh between Ukraine and Russia,   now artillery would get uh second place on the  list of important weapons. And I think drones   would be the most important weapon uh affecting  events on the battlefield. And so that's 2024.  

Here we are in 2026. So it's only recently that  we've become aware uh that drones matter as much   as they do. And I would imagine that the US  military is now scrambling like crazy uh to   deal with the drone issue. You would think so.  Yeah. So I I I think that it's it's explainable   uh in rational legal terms why we did not pay  that much attention uh to drones up until about   2024. But I think we are now paying attention as  is everybody else because we understand uh you   know that this really matters. How do you think  this conflict is resolved and how quickly? I think   that basically you'll end up with something like  a frozen conflict. Um I think that uh you want to   understand what President Trump is trying to do  here is he's trying to get a ceasefire, right?   And the idea is that if you can get a ceasefire  for 30 or 60 days, the number changes that after   you get this ceasefire in place, you can then move  to negotiations on things like the nuclear issue,   reparations, uh the future of the overall  package of sanctions and so forth and so on.   You want to understand here that we're not talking  about settling the nuclear issue in these initial   negotiations. The initial negotiations that  are going on now are designed to set up a real  

ceasefire. In other words, we want to stop the  shooting completely. And this includes in Lebanon,   right? Stop the shooting completely. We want to  open the straight and the American blockade and   the Iranian blockade. Open the straight.  The Iranians want $24 billion in frozen   assets given back to them. Their money, their  money. That's three. That's number three. And   number four is the Iranians want sanctions taken  off their sale of their oil on global markets.   Okay, so those are the four things that have to  happen to get a real ceasefire. But you notice   in those four elements, you see no evidence of  the nuclear issue or the question of overall   sanctions or reparations or control of the strait  moving forward. All these issues will be settled   uh in the second round. Now, my view is that  you're probably going to get a real ceasefire   at some point because that will open the straits  and opening the straits matters immensely to   President Trump because of what the consequences  are for the international economy. Now, when it   comes to violating that ceasefire, the country  that will violate it is Israel. But if Israel   violates the ceasefire and the Iranians react by  shutting down the straits again, oh my god, we're  

back to the economic threat resurrecting itself.  So I don't think Trump will allow the Israelis to   wreck the ceasefire. They may try anyway, but  I don't think so. Then the $64,000 question   is what will happen in the negotiations over the  nuclear issue, control of the strait, reparations,   overall sanctions package, and so forth and so  on. And there I find it hard to believe that   you're going to get a meaningful deal. Trump likes  to say that, remember, this is Trump speaking,   it took many years to negotiate the JCPOA. That  was the original nuclear deal. That's what he The   one he ran against and hated. Yeah. The And by the  way, the one he walked away from in 2018. And he   now says, you know, when people say, "Why don't  you have a nuclear deal now?" He says, "You have   to understand it takes many years to negotiate  a nuclear deal." Of course, he's correct. But   what you want to ask yourself is what does that  Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, and by the way, this is a   nightmare for the Israelis. I mean, if you want to  think about what this war means to the Israelis,   right? They would have they were so much better  off with the JCPOA, they were so much better   off with the deal that they would have gotten on  February 27th. Now, they're in a situation where I   don't think they're going to get a nuclear deal. I  may be wrong. I don't think they're going to get a   nuclear deal. And the Iranians, as we both know,  have a lot of highlyenriched uranium, up to 60%  

they can easily turn into weaponsgrade material  and build the bomb. And the Israelis have just   demonstrated that they don't have the capability.  And we have just demonstrated that we don't   have the capability to go in there and get that  weaponsgrade material and shut down their nuclear   enrichment capability forever. So, it is possible  that the Iranians may get a bomb. Well, they're   certainly going to get a more robust economy, and  they certainly have cemented their place as like a   a legit regional power, which they sort of weren't  fully before. I also think this changes their   relationship with the GCC. I think some of the  Gulf states at least were kind of shocked by the   unwillingness or inability of the United States  to protect them from nuclear from Iranian attacks.   actually act as a magnet for Iranian attacks.  Totally. And the whole deal was like we'll send   trillions to the United States in foreign direct  investment, but like you got to protect us. Yeah.   We'll align with Israel. We'll sign the Abraham  Accords. We we'll do whatever you want, but you   got to protect us. And we didn't. And so you can  imagine a world where some of those six countries   in anyway become closer to Iran like in 20 years  than they were before. But certainly the world   sees Iran as like a real country now and they  control the aperture at the end of the Persian   Gulf. So like how are they not way more powerful  than they have been in our lifetimes? Yeah. Well,   as you know, we like to portray other countries  as irrational and crazy. Second coming of Adolf  

Hitler completely. Uh and some crazy theocracy  where they throw gays off buildings or something.   But the truth is if you look at Iran today and  you look at the United States and Israel today,   which of those three countries looks like the  responsible stakeholder in the international   system? Yeah. Of those three countries, which you  know, which seems the least unreasonable? Which   this country seems like it has more blasphemy laws  than Iran sometimes? I mean, it's crazy the number   of things you can't say in the United States  because you can't certain words are literally   verboten. Certain interpretations of history  are crimes. Those aren't blasphemy laws. Yes,   they are. That's I mean, that's just true. But  there's much truth in that. But the point is,   if you're another country on the planet and  you're looking at those three countries, Israel,   the most hated country in the world by the way,  according to recent polls, and the United States,   which is not far from the bottom, and Iran,  which country, right, looks like it is the most   uh responsible in terms of its foreign policy,  right? And it's the Iranians, right? And uh it's   the Americans and the Israelis who both basically  look like they're rogue states uh just running   around the world uh you know invading countries  uh causing genocide and so forth and so on. Uh the  

damage that has been done to Israel's reputation  is just off the charts. It's very hard for me to   believe how much damage Israel has done to itself  with help from the lobby as I've emphasized in   our conversation here. uh but also the United  States, the damage that we've done to ourselves,   right? And a lot of people will say this is due to  Trump. Uh Trump has contributed to this for sure,   but look at the Biden administration. Uh it  was the Biden administration that supported   the genocide in Gaza from the get-go. Uh it  was the Biden administration that's principally   responsible for what's happened in Ukraine.  The Biden administration could have prevented   the war in Ukraine and in fact it it wanted  it. Exactly. Uh so the Biden administration,   one could argue, is almost as bad, if not worse,  than the Trump administration. May I ask you,   so over the past six years, there have been  a bunch of different moments where the United   States has been accused of using negotiations  as a ruse in order to lure its opponents into   vulnerability and then assassinate them. And I've  been hesitant to believe that that could be true   because I'm American and I love this country and  that's so dishonorable that you would never want   to live in a country that would do something  like that. That that's truly out of bounds.   Starting with the killing, the assassination  of General Solommani about 6 years ago in Iraq.   He flew in commercial for negotiations.  He was killed, which was shocking to me,   but everyone else loved it. And then a bunch  of times in the past several months, the the  

bombing of Doha by the Israelis on September  9th of last year. Again and again and again,   it seems like the United States has been party to  or aware of traps in which diplomacy was used as   the lure. Is that real? Do you think we actually  did that? Well, there's no question that our   closest ally in the world, who we support at every  turn, which is the Israelis, is uh obsessed with   assassination. They're constantly murdering,  and I think murdering is the right word,   right? Uh leadersh in organizations all over the  Middle East. And there's no question about that.   And there's also no question, as the Sulmani case  makes clear, that we've uh moved in that same   direction. We're not as bad as them, although we  do support what they do. We never criticize them,   but we are deeply involved. But to pretend that  you want to have a negotiation with someone,   get them to drop their guard, and then kill them,  that's like something Western countries have never   done. That's totally out of That's what we used to  criticize the American Indians for doing, right?   Or the Japanese or some other primitive Eastern  culture, right? We we don't do that. Well, if   you if you remember, we attacked uh Iran uh last  June. This is the 12-day war, June 13th to June  

25th. Uh and that attack, which was initiated by  the Israelis, came out of the blue. And it's when   the Iranians were in the middle of negotiations  with Oh, I remember. Yeah. But I remember thinking   this can't be really happening. We couldn't have  known. We would never sign off on that. That's   the level we've sunk to. I mean, there's just no  getting around this. And you see this, I think,   with the General Sulammani case. I think that was  a colossal mistake on our part, but this is where   we're at. And by the way, you know, I think this  whole business of assassination is very important   because I think it has a blowback effect into  the United States. I don't think you want to be   sending a signal to people in the United States.  Certainly, President Trump should not want to be   doing this given that he was the victim of an  assassination attempt. Should not be sending   the message that assassination is a legitimate  way of doing business. Yes, I agree. just just   don't want to do this. It just it it it's not only  morally wrong, it just doesn't make any sense for   how we conduct politics inside the United States  uh or or around the world. Uh assassination should   just be for for very exceptional circumstances.  If you could have assassinated Adolf Hitler,   of course, you would have done that. But these  are, you know, the extreme cases. Otherwise, uh,   we should be out of the business of assassination  and actually condemning it when it happens.

Last question. Do you ever get calls from people  who say, "20 years ago, I attacked you as a crank   and a bigot, but now I got to admit you were 100%  right about everything." Yes. Really? Yes. Well,   I don't I don't get I don't get phone calls  because we don't do phone calls anymore,   but Do you ever get texts? I get text messages  and I get lots of emails uh because my email is   uh available. So, lots of people send me uh very  nice emails. Uh and a good number of those people   uh say that they once thought that I was out to  lunch, that I was uh all wrong. And uh really they   admit it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's only in the  elite that people never admit they're wrong and   never change their views. I I think in the broader  public, and by the way, lots of people write to me   who disagree with me uh on different issues, but  agree with me on other issues. I actually find   that my discourse um with the greater public is um  quite varigated. There are some people who agree   completely with me on uh the Middle East and on  Israel in particular and agree with me completely   on Ukraine who are deeply offended by my views  on China because I believe that we should contain   China. Right? And uh there are other people who  write who like my views on the Middle East and  

on Israel but dislike my views on Ukraine.  So you know when you engage the public and   when I talk about the public here I engage with  people all over the planet. I get huge numbers of   emails from the global south uh from Europe from  Russia. But when you engage with people what you   discover is that no group of people have the same  views on every issue. That's right. That people   tend to disagree. And I actually think that's a  wonderful thing. And this gets back to our whole   discussion of the media, the mainstream media  and the fact that we have uh so few views that   challenge the conventional wisdom represented uh  in the mainstream media. This is not a healthy   uh phenomenon. What you want is you want lots of  people with different views to contend with each   other and for them to to fight it out. And I don't  mean fight it out in a nasty way. Fight it out in   a professional way, for lack of a better phrase.  And uh but anyway, I find that you know when I go   talk uh to groups or when my podcasts appear uh  on the internet uh that I get lots and lots of   people who applaud me uh and nevertheless at the  same time uh will uh I won't say often uh but will   sometimes criticize my views on particular issues  at the same time they're applauding me. And I do   not feel bad about that at all. I think that's the  way the business should work. I'm not a proitizer,  

you know. I'm not going on your show or going  on any other show to tell people the truth and   tell them that they should accept the truth from  John Mirshimemer. What I'm trying to do is talk   in a very intelligent way as you are about how  we think about particular issues. And of course,   people are sometimes going to agree with us and  sometimes disagree with us. That's wonderful. And   what's happening here is that in the vast majority  of cases, I think people take their bearing from   what we have to say. If they listen to Tucker  Carlson talk about issue X, uh, and they're trying   to figure out what they think on issue X, they'll  use your framework, they'll use your answers   to help inform how they think. And hopefully  you'll have a positive influence. Hopefully,   I'll have a positive influence. But I think this  may sound idealistic, but I do think this is the   way it should work and this is way you this is  why you want to have an open discourse. Of course, I think now is like I said this at the outset  and I really believe it though I don't fully   understand it. I think this is like a pivot point  in history and it it's important to understand at   least some of what's going on. I think it's  impossible to understand all of it and how it   interconnects and and what it will mean down the  road. But I don't think that we should just see   these as like isolated bubbling up of turmoil  in this or that region. Like I think the whole  

world is changing and it's important to try  to know what is happening. I would say Tucker   in the best of times the world is incredibly  complicated. Yes. Right. And I sometimes like   to say we live in a world of radical uncertainty.  Yes. Right. That's in the best of times. Today,   oh my god, it's so hard to figure out  what's going on. Right. We're all in a   very important way kind of flying blind. And  what we're trying to do is make sense of the   world. And what we try to do in exchanges  like this is go further down that road.   and both of us trying to refine our thinking about  these important issues and inform lots of people   in the process so that everybody is less blind  moving forward. Yeah. And really the only sin from   my perspective is lying. And anyone who's trying  his hardest to tell the truth, right or wrong,   is an ally of mine. That's how I feel about  it. Amen. Amen. John Mor Sharper, professor,   thank you very much. Thank you for having me.  Pleasure. Such a joy every time. Thank you.