Transcription
As the Trump administration continues to try and make some hay with this memorandum of understanding and trying to work through some of the deals. We had a few hiccups at the beginning of yesterday's talks, but at least they turned into something relatively productive and diplomacy takes a long time and you're not going to get everything done in a day, but at least there was communication lines are continuing on and we have some challenges with what the US side said afterwards and what the Iranian side said afterwards. More on that in a second.
But there's one thing I got to show you right now. One of the biggest problems that we have to getting these things sold is some I mean there's there's only no other way to put this twisted minds of some people in the West that cannot see just ground truth reality and just something that is patently obvious especially after it's been true. Uh and we're going to talk to somebody today and I'm really glad to have back with us today Joe Kent uh who of course uh resigned as he was a former director of National Carol Counterterrorism Center and correct me if I'm wrong an 11time combat vet. Isn't that right Joe?
>> That's right. That's kind of important. Uh so his views are a lot more important than a lot because he has the absolute experience both inside the government and inside the combat zone. So uh we're really grateful to have you on. Welcome back Joe first of all.
>> Always great to be with you man. Thanks for having me. Uh listen, I'm just going to get to it because man, this this uh in the Wall Street Journal yesterday and I just just saw this. My wife passed it along to me uh because somehow I had missed it. But uh this is former vice president, former vice president. This is a guy, let me reiterate this. It was a heartbeat away from being the commander-in-chief, the president of the United States. He said, "This is yesterday. This is not a year ago. This is not four months ago. This is yesterday." He wrote, you see the title there, victory over Iran is still possible while we're in the midst of trying to negotiate an end to this war to get it off the table. He writes, "The Iranian regime is on its heels. Its military capabilities have been seriously degraded. Its terrorist proxies have been weakened. Its economy remains under severe pressure. For the first time in many years, the momentum is with the US and our ally, Israel." Wow. That one sentence right there deserves some commentary in a second. Recall that our brave men and women in uniform in coordination with our Israeli allies established air superiority over Iran. Yet the memorandum of understanding fails to capitalize on that opportunity. I I just got to ask what the literal heck is going on here. What do you make of this state this headline yesterday?
>> Well, I mean neocons, if nothing else, they're evergreen and they just never update anything they say because I feel like this this op-ed could have been written like 20 years ago. you know, people making the same argument 20 years ago. Hey, look, we we invaded these two countries that surround Iran. We've got them on their heels, etc. I mean, at the end of the day, like it's just the same tired old talking points there. There's no real new information or critical thinking in there. The question I would ask the vice president is or the former vice president is you say victory is at hand. Please define for me victory. Go ahead. like just if you can define what victory looks like in Iran and how you will achieve that victory through using the military and an application of force, I'm all ears. I'd love to hear the plan because I think the president said the same thing and he even gave >> he did the military the time and the space to test out this theory and they weren't able to prove it to him and so now we're at the negotiating table. So I I don't I don't know why anybody would even give give Mike Pence the time a day. But it is important I think to highlight that we still have neocons that have very prominent positions at some parts of the government and you know the the blob and the beltway that are saying these these 20-y year out of date talking points. They're just ridiculous people.
>> Yeah. Know I don't really understand why all of a sudden because this is not the only place I've seen Mike Pence name pop up here recently. He's been on television a bunch. I don't know why suddenly anyone's interested in his opinion, especially with stuff like this. But but let me just ask you about that middle pair, middle sentence there. For the first time in many years, the momentum is with the US and our ally Israel. I mean, we burned through 40 days and up to 40 something% of our air interceptors and couldn't even dent most of these missile factories that are underneath granite mountains. What momentum is he talking about?
>> I don't know. I mean, I just think he's getting these talking points from guys at, you know, FDD or maybe Fox News or right from Israel. I mean, because the momentum, you just can't define it. He just has to use the the momentum's on our side and you're not allowed to think about it or be like what you said. What brother, what momentum? Like, I don't know what you're talking about. If the president could force open the Straits of Hormuz for a meaningful length of time, if he could, you know, kill a certain military leader, political leader, then, you know, all these different things would would have worked. We'd be on a pathway to victory. So it's the whole thing is just absurd. These people should not be listened to.
>> They they should not and and yet I I I guess some are because they still don't understand. But it seems to me and I'd like your view on this too. Just as common sense and I'm talking about from the viewer position, people who read the Wall Street Journal, people who watch the Fox News or or or just you look at their social media feeds, etc. or shows like this, you can see that we you just said it really good a second ago. We tried to prove that point. We tried to validate the contention we could militarily conquer the other side. We utterly failed. And it's it's been no secret. Even the Wall Street Journal has been published in in accounts of why we couldn't penetrate these mountain factories, why the missiles continue to f fly, the fact that they had been mostly recovered after these, you know, during the ceasefire, after the 40 days, and that we can't knock them out. And yet, they still keep listening to this stuff. seems like it that more people are going to be acting the way you and I are of what are you even talking about that is so disconnected from reality you're losing credibility. Do you see that happen or will they cling on to this myth?
>> Actually, I I I think they are definitely losing credibility fast. I it's unfortunate that we had to go through this last iteration to prove that these guys who were wrong for over 20 years were wrong once again, but with higher consequences this time. However, the the shift in public sentiment for people who don't follow foreign policy and war in the Middle East the way that we do and a lot of your viewers do, I think if you just look at the public polling, people are sick of hearing this crap and they see the rising price of the pump and then that reflects in the public polling and then the president feels that. And I think a lot of the president's frustration right now is because he gave these people yet again one more chance when it was against all his best instincts. And I think, you know, in the last in the last week or so, he's had a drastically different tune. I I'm just guessing here, but I think a lot of that is because he finally kind of picked his head up from his foxhole and he was like, "Wait a sec. What have all my results been? Like my political coalition is kind of in shambles right now. It's shattered at least. Um maybe it's repairable, but also the gas crisis, uh the the effect on the strategic petroleum reserves, what's taking place with the Straits of Hormuz." And I think he was like, "Wait a sec, what's this all for? I can't I can't fight or kill my way out of this. Um how do we even get here?" here. And so I I think a lot of that frustration is being reflected in the president and the public polling. And so I think people like, you know, Mike Pence and all these different talking heads. I think they're going to have to adopt a different tune if they want to stay relevant or they're just going to fade away. I hope. Maybe I'm being too optimistic.
>> Yeah. Well, the what the hope is is that because President Trump listened to them in the first iteration that we may have gotten ourselves into a real hole. Now, yeah, you and I were talking just before we came on the air here, and I think we're in agreement that uh we have some hope and some optimism. The fact that we got the memorandum of understanding, finally, we got a single text that was agreed to by both sides, and they put their signatures on it, that was a real step ahead because President Trump had to ignore a lot of these guys who've been begging him to go back to war and Mark Levin, Lindsey Graham, Jack Keane, General Kellogg, all these guys, uh, and a bunch more. But he didn't. he went to, but he did sign it. Now, here's here's where we start to get some of the challenges about how we're ever going to get through it. Now, this is the official language of the memorandum of understanding, and you see paragraph number one right up front is that by signing this, the sides declare an immediate and permanent termination of military operation on all fronts, including Lebanon. And to me, there's nearly everything else can be worked through. Never everything else can be modified and there can be some give and take here and there. languages can be found. This is one where you physically have Israel in Lebanon and they have a very strong opinion in there and you have the Hezbollah in Lebanon who has a very strong opinion also about what has to happen and one of those two is going to have to be is going to have to succeed if if the US side and our requirement along with Pakistan and Qatar uh and Iran who's all agreed to Israel has to withdraw from that or Israel who so far has been adamantly opposed to it. Now, let me just get you right off the bat here. Um, one of the reasons that you resigned, maybe the main reason is because you felt like, uh, let me not put words in your mouth, but I think it was because that we had given in too much to the Israeli side to the harm of our own national interest. Is that okay?
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Okay. So, here is uh Benjamin Netanyahu first of all talking about the issue of Lebanon. I I said and I repeated here a few minutes ago. As long as we need to protect our people, we will remain in the security zone in South Lebanon. And the reason the reason is perfectly understood. No country would be asked to do otherwise. We don't have a war with Lebanon. We have a war withaha who terrorizes Lebanon and seeks our destruction. And when that proxy of Iran is no longer a threat, when it's dismantled, when it's disarmed, yes, we'll have peace with Lebanon. And I look forward to signing it.
>> So he's basically setting up impossible conditions. So yeah, as soon as they're dismantled or disarmed, then fine, we'll leave Lebanon. But he said elsewhere in that same speech that, you know, just like we still are in Gaza, just like we're still in Syria, we're not going to leave here until everything is guaranteed, i.e. never. How do we get even to the next point of that thatou if we can't even get past that first one?
>> Yeah. I mean a key part to make sure theou holds and I think you accurately pointed out what the most vulnerable part of theou is because the part that we can control probably the least uh is the inclusion of Lebanon much like the straits of Hormuz though I think it's important to note that before this war Iran was not able to overtly affect policy and use Hezbollah and Lebanon and Gaza as a bargaining chip just like they didn't have the Straits of Hormuz shut down and they weren't tolling the Straits of Hormuz uh ahead of the conflict or deciding when the straits is open or vice versa because of the success that the Iranians have had on on the battlefield u just calling a spade a spade they have been able to say actually we're going to take our our battlefield gains and now we're going to project power overtly not covert anymore overtly into Lebanon and we want Israel out of Lebanon we want them to stop the incursions uh and so in order for us to get theou signed I think we actually had to put that in there um but this is the part that Israel could very easily break. Unlike uh restarting the war with Iran, Israel would have a hard time doing that because they can't. It's hard for them to project power in a consistent basis into Iran just because the geography. Lebanon's right next door. So, it's really hard for us to actually prevent the Israelis from taking actions in in Lebanon, which is why we're going to have to be even more forceful [snorts] with the Israelis. And this is why I from day one have basically said we've got to restrain the Israelis. It's not just a matter of strongly worded, you know, social media posts or memos anymore. We're going to have to start restricting aid and then say, "Look guys, it's going to get much worse or it's going to go on longer if you don't knock this off because they do have the ability to to really break things uh for us in a meaningful way." And then conversely, I I don't think that the Iranians are are going to have much tolerance for it either because the the the deal in theouou is already somewhat polit politically fragile inside of Iran because now the hardliners are in charge because the Israelis were effective in getting us on board to kill the Ayatollah at the very beginning. The Israelis then went and killed a lot of the moderates. So the Israelis have set this mouse trap where even now that they know that we want a deal because the war is has become politically unsustainable here. They knew that was going to happen. So they got us on from jump street with killing off the moderates. And so now we're left with trying to balance out an emerging regional power that is Iran. So this is going to be very very tricky for us. So again, it's good that the the vice president's up there uh and was actually negotiating with them. It's good that we're at the table so there is more playing the joints. We're both at the table together. But like you pointed out, this is going to be very very hard. And that's why I think we have to come out the gates really really strong with actually taking meaningful steps to restrain Israel. And and how do you think I mean you you've been up there you've seen inside the government you've seen the headwinds against that and how difficult it is for anyone to publicly stand you know to challenge maybe a better way to put it to challenge Israel on some of these things. Now we have seen you you just alluded to it. We have seen some statements we've seen a few uh social media posts that that we hadn't seen before from the both the president and the vice president. So that might be hopeful that they're moving that direction. But how much more difficult do you think it would go take for him to go from making statements because this stuff that I just showed from Netanyahu is after those statements have been made. So it obviously did not have any kind of a moving action on it. I could have also put up this one uh here by Israel Katz where he also said Israel has no intention of withdrawing from Bow Fort which is an integral part of the security zone in Lebanon. And that last part Israel will not withdraw from the security zone in Lebanon. and he just boasted about wiping out 200,000 uh dwelling people in dwelling areas and and forcing them to go elsewhere and saying they will never get to come back. Uh so again, it seems like they're putting semen in and not listening. Therefore, what would have to happen and do you think it can happen for it to go more from words to what you suggested is some kind of actions?
All right, then uh good luck on doing it without any more of our J dams. I think I think if the president doesn't do that quickly, the the Israelis are are going to do a good job of of saying yes to our face. I mean, there was a article in the New York Times just I think today where it said that there's, you know, new restrictions placed on self-imposed restrictions placed on the Israelis and the security zone. To me, that seemed kind of like a tactical leak to make it seem like, yes, Mr. President, we're playing along, but without doing anything. I I just think that we've got to be really stern and just say like, look, we we've been through this. you, the Israelis have already messed up multiple iterations of ceasefire. They've already defined the president on multiple occasions when the president said don't strike into Lebanon and the Israelis did. So I think if we're going to play that game with them, we know what they're going to do. They're going to spoil it. That's why I think we've got to come out and show the LU government at least like we're not messing around like some of your aid is getting restricted. Keep messing around and you're going to go it all on your own going forward. And that's also going to show the Iranians that we're serious. So that way when there is a violation, like inevitably there probably will be, we can go to the Iranians and we can say, "Look, we're still serious about theou and we're doing everything we can to include restricting aid to Israel to enforce it." Otherwise, the hardliners in Iran, I think, are going to say to them, the the relative moderates, the few that are left, the guys that are negotiating, "Hey, what are we even doing here?" Like, we we have the upper hand. We can just shut down the straits again and go right back to what we were doing for the last couple months. So that will put a lot of pressure on the Iranians that we need to be supportive of theou as well. So we've got to give we've got to show that we're actually committed to restraining Israel in a meaningful way. Otherwise the Israelis won't take us seriously and the Iranians won't either. And then we we'll be back to the status quo.
>> Yeah. And I'm sorry. Remind me of what day you actually tendered your resignation letter.
>> 17th of March.
>> Okay. 17th of March. All right. So, you had already left by this time here because th this this seems to me to be one of the bigger uh examples of what you're talking about where the Israeli side intentionally tries to sabotage what President Trump is doing. Here was the headline on the 8th of April, I'm sorry, the 7th of April. Uh it was I think it was already the 8th of April in the local time, Trump announced an Iran ceasefire uh ahead of that 8:00m deadline. The next day on the 8th, Israel launches this massive striking just hours after the ceasefire was announced by the US. They killed 182 people and the the biggest strike within within 10 minutes, something like that. Never seen that kind of uh volume before. And so that that seemed to just like not even spit in the face. It's more like slap in the face and spit uh directly into President Trump. And then we saw some similar things happen even here. And finally, belatedly, we got to this signing of theou, but as you just saw from Netanyahu's own mouth, it doesn't seem to be any uh forgiving on that.
>> No, I mean, because why would the Israelis take us seriously? I mean, honestly, if you're the Israelis right now and your goal is to continue the war because you want to, you know, topple the regime, decapitate the regime, have Iran fall into like a chaotic situation where that government can't threaten us anymore, threaten you, Israel anymore, then you've got to keep pushing it. And anyways, you've got no reason not to keep pushing it because regardless of what we post on social media or what we say to the Israelis, we've just never taken any action. So, I frankly don't think that they really take us seriously. the the only bright the only silver lining there is I would say the Israelis are pretty uh they have a good understanding of American politics. So they know that they're losing the information more here. So they know eventually this is all going to kind of come crashing down on them. But I think you've got two schools of thought in Israel right now. You've got Smress and Bengavir who are saying go for broke like keep it up the like make the Americans take stuff away from us. Try and get the Americans suck back into the war. Don't listen to them. And then I do think there are some more pragmatic people uh in the Israeli government who are saying like, "Wait a sec. We kind of poked the bear here. Maybe we should back off so we don't lose anything." But I I I don't know. I still think a lot of the the more hardliners in the LUD government are, you know, in the driver's seat right now. [snorts]
>> And and let me ask you a question from from as much as you're able to tell from the time you were in the government. I noticed this is something you were uh focused on a lot. And that is the military capacity of Iran? They have been I'm sorry of Israel. They have been fighting since 107 on a very sustained level and it now expanded into all these different countries. Sometimes against the Houthies in Yemen uh sometimes against Syria uh you know obviously now in Iran and in uh Hezbollah in Lebanon. They can't just keep going on this forever because their army was never designed for this. I mean and it's functional. it was, you know, the reserve primarily to, you know, go up and down if he needed to to fight short sharp wars. But now then this thing is looking to expand and and and just go indefinitely. If they get what they want and President Trump doesn't put his foot down here, can the Israeli military survive long term if they get what they want?
>> No. I mean, they require on us to to continue to support and sustain them. Uh especially when they're when they're going on the offense constantly. the amount of uh I'd say defense features that we're providing so that they can defend themselves, it it's huge. And and so this is a problem that they have. They if they want to stay on all these different wars essentially and to continue to go on the offensive and take more territory and strike into Lebanon, Syria, Yemen occasionally. Um if they want to pick a fight with the Turks, which they seem like they want to do, that seems to be their next ridge line. Um then they've got to keep the support from the US. I mean, it's just it's impossible for them not to. This is another reason why I I think, you know, more strategically, it would be a good thing for us to significantly reduce, if not completely, cut off aid that we give to Israel because it would make them actually have normal relations with their neighbors. They wouldn't be able to pick fights with basically all of their neighbors. I think that they're competent and I think they'd be able to to defend themselves. They'd be able to defend their own borders. However, I they most certainly wouldn't be able to to uh sustain operations at this level, especially I mean Iran. This this is the whole crux of it. They had to get us involved uh for Iran. There was no way they could even come close to doing what they were doing. We've seen the capabilities of of Israel in inside of Iran. They can do some limited strikes. They can do some targeted assassinations. They did some impressive things during the 12-day war with a lot of the MSAD deep assets they had in there. But in terms of actually being able to militarily degrade Iran, they just can't do that without us. But then again, it's kind of debatable how much we can militarily degrade Iran at this point.
>> Yeah, we we've validated your concern on that one. Uh because we degraded for sure, but definitely couldn't hit the things that matter the most, which is their speedboat navy. They help control the straight of Hormuz and those missile and drone factories underground that we can't get to. And that by itself almost it doesn't matter about all the other stuff that we may have destroyed. Uh I want to look at kind of the a little bit bigger that's that's like point one on here. But kind of the bigger overarching thing uh that both Netanyahu and President Trump have said uh you know and just camped on Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Now on the one hand that might seem that's not that big a deal because Iran has never said they wanted one. They've always said they don't want one. So they can agree to that all day long and have no problem with it. But it's the things that go along with it primarily saying many both President Trump periodically and and many Israelis that there can be zero enrichment. That's kind of important. We can't do that. But here is what uh Gary if you can play the president possesses Yen who talked about that issue of enrichment. We will not give up our right to enrichment and they too will be forced to accept it. You all know what the so-called president of the United States was saying. He had made a complete 100 degree turn. He was saying that Iran must surrender unconditionally. Iran has no right to do this. It has no right to do that.
>> So from from a lot of Iranian experts that I've been able to talk to, they consider the enrichment issue a national sovereignty issue. not even so much the capability but for a sovereignty that they're not going to be compelled not to do it because they're a signature of the NPT the non-prololiferation treaty which authorizes them to do that. So they said they're not going to go to zero. They're going to do that. But then here we have uh Netanyahu uh who seems to have a bigger uh agenda with that. I think the greatest achievement we have made is to break through the barrier of fear. For years, people told us you cannot attack the soil of Iran. Yes, you can do Mossad operations and we did quite a few. I authorized many. But you cannot send our military to Iran. But we changed that. The people of Israel are showing the world how a nation should behave when faced with an existential threat. Stare unflinchingly at the danger. Calmly consider what needs to be done and what can be done and be ready to enter the fray at the proper moment. And then he ended his words. These are the last public words in my father's life. This leads to my certain belief, he said that our people will roll back this danger to our existence. And I say to you now what I said at my brother's grave just a few hours ago today. I said, "No matter what happens in the talks, with an agreement, without an agreement, I pledge to you that Iran, as long as I'm prime minister, will never have a nuclear weapon."
>> Okay. So, help me interpret that as best you as far as you concerned because Iran has always said, at least since 2003, they don't want a nuclear weapon. Our intelligence, which you know better than most, has validated that they have no nuclear weapons program. They have not decided to start one. Yes, they have the capability, but they have not made the decision. Therefore, he should already be good to go because they don't want a weapon. They're ready to say it again that they're not going to have one. But that caveat he added right at the end there with or without an agreement, they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. How do you interpret that? that basically he he believes that they can do essentially whatever they want to do. Now his implied task to use a military term he says he wants to do that. What's the implied task? The implied task is he needs to get America bought on to continuing this this war because again the military capability of Israel just isn't sufficient for Iran. But the fact that he keeps bringing up nuclear weapons leads me to believe that they know this issue of enrichment of uranium because it can never really be solved unless you take over the entire country. It it's this it's this thing that we have to continue to chase that will always justify more conflict. So even if we sign theou it's going to be very easy for Israel to come back in and say actually Mr. president, you know, they they complied for a little bit, but we have some intelligence that says that they're enriching up to 95%. They're enriching up to whatever percent and that means they're going to be weeks away from a nuclear weapon. I mean, this is his playbook, and it's as cliche as it is, it's worked in the past before. And President Trump himself continues to say Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Uh, but the Israelis were effective at moving that red line. And I talked about that a little bit in my my resignation letter with you previously before. The Iranians agreed, President Trump agreed, no nuclear weapon. Then they were negotiating on the enrichment issue. The Israelis came in and they were very effective, especially between after midnight hammer and February in convincing President Trump that any kind of enrichment that Iran had would result in a nuclear weapon. And that's why you see hear this obsession about like the nuclear dust that's buried below, you know, the nuclear sites out there that they still have some degree of enrichment. And so it's going to be, you know, a back and forth game, but I I think BB is doing a a decent job there of setting the narrative and keeping the narrative alive that if Iran has anything that could produce, you know, a nuclear weapon that it's going to be a justification of some sort to get us back involved in the war, knowing that the poison pill for the Iranians is giving up all their enrichment. So, it's either going to be the Hill that ends up killing theou because they won't give up their enrichment if they can convince Trump to move the red line once more. I hope he doesn't do that. I hope he realizes that that was a trick. Um or it's going to be used as justification to come back and say like they're they're continuing to enrich. We have to go back. We have to go back in.
>> Yeah. And and like you said, it has worked before and Netanyahu since the first time I saw anyway uh was 1985 when he's been talking about the Iran's about to have a nuclear weapon and all those times at the UN General Assembly, etc. He's just obsessed with this. Yeah, as as long as he's in office, I I just can't see him ever uh standing down on that. You talked about that might be the hill to die. I mean, that's not even We haven't even got past point one yet about the Leon. So, there's a couple of hills that could die on thisou. Uh, one of the reasons we need neither of those hills to to be died upon and why we do need theou to work is because of the straight of hormones and the oil and gas and fertilizer and helium and everything else that's not coming out. It's starting to trickle out today, but it's still a very small number so far. But uh one of the things Vice President Vance talked about yesterday was that and President Trump went way too far and exaggerated and said oil is gushing out of the Middle East now, so everything's going to be fine. But and then I've got a kind of a combination soundbite here. Here's what JD Vance is talking about on the straight of Hormuz. But then here's what an oil expert is saying on the back side. We wanted to build a mechanism for keeping the straight of Hormuse open. It is open. We've seen, of course, gas prices and oil prices come down. Millions and millions of barrels of crude and natural gas flowing through the Straight of Hormuse that weren't flowing before.
>> There's one camp that says, "Look, you know, it's not so bad. Things are going to get back to normal. We've signed this. Uh, you know, we really didn't need that much oil. Demand is down." I'm in the camp that we're sleepwalking towards a cliff and every day that flows are significantly constrained. You know, whether you get five ships through compared to two ships, that's really not very much when you're talking about the total amount of energy that used to flow through the straight. I'm of the opinion that this is going to come to head very soon, talking in the next couple weeks, maybe a month in the energy world and we're going to be feeling these effects when we simply don't have the kind of products and the kinds of energy we need available at the prices that we're seeing or we're told it should be. and and you know that's she vice president Vance and President Trump were talking about how you know the the oil price was down and so the price of gasoline is coming down. Those are things that are manipulated by the market and that works and has worked even throughout this period of time. However, there is an expiration date on that because if there's physically not enough supply uh and President Trump alluded to that when he talked about making this thisou because he said we were four weeks away from our SPR being out. Well, that's still the case even with the trickle here. If we don't get an agreement on these two hills that you just described here, Joe, we could be back in the point where even the trickle gets shut back off and we're still in that problem. How do you see that?
That that's the the issue and that's what I think has gotten President Trump to change his tune. I mean, because he is he's a business guy. He's a numbers guy. He understands the economy. And he did say a lot of this kind of out loud at the G7 when he was frustrated. and he said a lot of he said a lot of things expressing frustration with the Israelis, but he also really pointed out the strategic petroleum reserves of not just us but a lot of major countries in the world. So regardless of whatever you know uh theory you believe that that was outlined there in that clip, the bottom line is the straits have to stay open like how bad the crisis is going to be and and just opening them back up, did that solve it? Like I I'll let the energy and oil experts kind of argue that one out, but I think everyone agrees that like the straits need to stay open otherwise there's going to be a major economic downturn and and that's going to be a cat uh disaster for the entire country and the entire world. So this is where I think we can't let uh perfect be the enemy of good in in this. We we have to keep the main thing the main thing and the main thing is get the straits of Hormuz open and make sure the war doesn't restart and the war doesn't expand. And that's why like all the pro-Israel uh folks and even some people who I who I like are like, "But why can't we why can't we let Israel just go crush Hezbollah?" And it's like, "Okay, look, man. I don't like Hezbollah. However, if the the war with Hezbollah is going to interfere with the straits of Hormuz that affects our economy here for every single American and affects the world economy, we can definitely tell the Israelis, knock it off for right now. Knock it off. You guys cannot go after Hezbollah. And if you break this whole deal, that's going to affect the Straits of Hormuz. Uh and and so again, this is where we have to restrain the Israelis and say like, look, no one's saying that you guys can't defend yourselves. But when you're doing an incursion and you have Israeli troops inside Lebanon, uh because you want to seize more territory or use right now to try to wipe out every single member of Hezbollah off the face of the earth, you're interfering with the global economy. And we can't let a country that is that tiny do that. It's just absolute insanity. So again, if if the president can keep the main thing the main thing and just focus purely on the economics and making sure the straits stay open, I think we can be successful in this. And look, the Iranians, they they know this and they're kind of going to make us play ball on that. I think to a certain degree, we still have a lot of power. They still have a lot of power, but I think the Iranians know that look, they've flexed their muscles in a way that I don't even know if they were aware of that they could do before with the control of the Straits of Hormuz. So in many ways, they're in more of a driver's seat than they have been before. And I just think we have to acknowledge that like you can't change geography. The Iranians control that geography. They're going to be a player in the region. Let's just accept the world as it is and do what we can to do to get what we need out of the region which especially if we limit our involvement there is very little and it's keep the straits open.
>> And so let me ask you a question. So the a lot of the focus has been on you know the straight of horm the damage to our economy and all that but the Iranian side the blockade the US blockade is causing a lot of damage there too. Is there does the US still have some leverage that it can be used to get Iran to move on some of its other issues? I don't know if the red line ones are, but how can we use our leverage in a constructive way in negotiations to get past those two hills?
>> I I think that the the carrot of sanctions relief so that the Iranians can start selling a lot of their their oil uh on the market, you know, without having to [clears throat] do all these different workarounds to circumvent the sanctions. I think that's more powerful than the military blockade because I just don't think the military blockade is as sustainable for us in the long run and it just makes us concentrate so many different resources in that finite area. It puts a lot of our uh our assets within striking distance of the Iranians. So in terms of our cost, our risk versus what we actually get out of it, I think it's pretty minimal compared to if we just removed the blockade, removed a lot of our troops and a lot of our targets from that region and we said to Iran, okay, Iran, if you guys want sanctions relief, then open up the Straits of Hormuz. If we're concerned about the tolling issue, I think us saying again, like we're not going to lift, you know, x amount of sanctions on you if you're going to continue to toll. We want the Straits of Hormuz to be open. We want the free flow of commerce. And in order for you guys to participate in that, you need sanctions relief. So I I I think this the carrot of sanctions relief and and the stick to a certain extent is much more powerful than anything that we can do militarily because especially if they can't strike our forces and they don't have the justifying factor like we kind of give them a reason for having some degree of aggression in the Straits of Hormuz when our bases and our blockade is there. I think we should just take away the advantages and the leverage that the Iranians have and kind of say, okay, the ball's in your court. you guys can prove that you're going to be a responsible, you know, member of the world community here. And if so, and you keep the straits open, then hey, we sanctions relief and we hope you do good business for everybody. And hopefully that ushers in, you know, a new era of peace.
>> And and I want to look at one one other area here. This is something that President Vice President Vance said uh in his commentary after the first round of negotiations here. Uh and that was on the issue of of frozen assets where the Iranian side has said because of our lack of trust, we're going to have to the sanctions relief, a lifting of the blockade, which and and the sanctions relief, which apparently has happened because the Treasury Department apparently has issued instructions for some of the sanctions to be relief. Apparently the the blockade is now allowing ships to go through. But then there's that thorny issue of the money up front. President Trump has said a bunch of times that he's not he was not going to do that at all. The Iranian side that said it has to be done upfront because we don't trust you. U if we've done these other things so far, will we do that one? Now, Vice President Vance said this about the frozen assets which may be caveat. We wanted to make sure that we set up a process where if if we ever unfreeze Iranian assets, we can ensure that Iranian money goes to help the people of Iran and not to fund terrorism. So Jared Kushner actually came up with a very interesting solution with the Qataris where basically again if there is any frozen Iranian assets that are unfrozen then we have approval over that process. The Qataris have approval over that process and then the money would actually go to buy American soy, American corn, and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people. And what Jared and the Qataris and the entire team accomplished is to me a classic Trump deal where if Iranian assets are ever unfrozen, they're going to go to make American farmers richer and to feed the Iranian people. That's a very very good and very classic Trump deal.
>> I think uh Gary found some some headlines where the Iranian siders going, "Yeah, what is he talking about?" We didn't say anything about agreeing that the US will get to decide how the money is used. Do you think that could just be a tool to mullify public opinion in the US to say, "Okay, well, we're going to release the the the money up front, but it's only to buy food from America, and if they do that, everything will be fine. But then we really can't tell them how they're going to spend the money anyway." What do you think of that?
>> And at the Yeah, I mean I I think it I think the vice president is doing everything he can to make this thing work and I commend him for that. I really do. Um so I I hope what he's saying is accurate or somewhere in the middle. Uh another trap that's kind of in theou that we could get hung up on is going to be this issue of unfreezing assets in any way, shape, or form. um because money is funible and it's going to be very easy for those who want to push us back into the conflict to say that money is going to go to fund the proxies. It's going to go to fund terrorism. And it more than likely is because the proxies, whether it was the uh the militias they have inside Iraq, whether it's Hezbollah, whether it's the Houthis, they all actually served their purpose during this war uh against Iran where they were kind of like the forward element working in coordination as part of the the defense of Iran. So, I I think we just have to be realistic and understand that the Iranians are going to put some of this money back into the coffers of the proxies. Now, we also saw at the beginning of the Trump administration until February that the Iranians when they want to, they can make it so the proxies don't attack us because they did that the entire 12-day war after Midnight Hammer. They withheld the proxies. The proxies did not attack us. So, the these are rational actors. Again, this
is about accepting the world as it is. Is it a good thing that Iran has all these different proxies? Like, no, it's not. But, do we understand like why they have them? I I think it's pretty easy to understand why they have them. And the Iranians aren't going to get to the negotiating table unless we do in some way, shape, or form unfreeze these assets that that we froze after we walked out of the >> JCPOA set up the mechanism.
>> Yeah. And and President Trump himself, he said what the G7 there, he said, well, I mean, it's their money. I mean, I guess.
>> So, he seemed to open the door for that.
>> Yeah. And so I think Trump just has to lean into that and be like, I'm a realist. You know, because he he always got attacked, you know, by the the neocons and and the people who've never existed in the real world, like when he when, you know, the classic moment about Putin when they said, but Putin's a killer. And he's like, you think we're so great? I mean, that was just classic Trump. And and so was him saying like, well, it's their money. And then the same thing when he was asked about Iranian ballistic missiles and he was like going to have some ballistic missiles because all their neighbors do. It's just common sense, but you're not allowed to say those things like in the the beltway foreign policy world. I think he just needs to re again keep the main thing the main thing we got to get the straits of horses opened back up and we got to end the war. We're going to unfreeze some of the funds. If they're going to buy American soy and wheat, whatever, great. If the Iranians say they're not going to do it, then just say, "Okay, that that's fine. As long as we're we're holding the ceasefire and the straits are open, let them do what they want with it." Because at the end of the day, if the Iranians take the 300 billion and they just use it to strengthen the regime, that's actually going to put them in more hot water with their people. So, I think we've just got to kind of play this out on on the long term as to what our goals are. And again, just keep it really simple like straits are open. Uh let's keep the straits open and let's not have the war resume and do everything you can to make sure those objectives are met.
>> And that's that's that's a good thing for America. And if we can in the process of doing that uh put some more daylight between our policies and Israeli policies, that'll help us going [clears throat] forward. Not I'm not at all against Israel. Let's keep them as a friendly state, but let's keep separate our interests from their interests and when they diverge, they can go their own way. That's that's kind of where I'm at on that. And if that happens as a result of this, that could be a good thing. I just hope that we get to that point.
>> Yeah, same here. 100%. I mean, if nothing else, this this last 90 days plus that we've been through, it just shows that we do have very very different strategic outcomes and strategic goals than the Israelis. And we've got to start asserting ourselves as the the leader and as you know, an independent country that will operate in the interest of our own people and not some foreign government. In this case, Israel's in >> indeed. And and I hope President Trump does what he said about uh we're the senior partner, they're the small partner, and I hope what you suggest is what he ends up doing. I hope he's listening uh and put some action with those words that helps our country. But uh we'll have to wait and see how that happens. But in the meantime, thank you so much for coming on sharing your insights today. We really appreciate it.
>> Great to see you, man. Thanks for having me.
>> Always see you very soon. And we appreciate you guys, too. Uh we got some great shows coming up this week. Uh just keep an eye on the uh on our on our web page there and you'll see who they got coming up here. Uh Doug McGregor is coming up. Larry Johnson as as always. Uh Robert Barnes is coming up later this week. Lot of great shows. Just keep watching and we'll see you then on the Daniel Davis deep dive. You know, I don't try to talk you into buying gold or tell you how to run your stock portfolio, but there is a way you can help us. Subscribe, hit that like button, and share this with somebody you love.
>> [music] [music]