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I think that Israeli influence and the Israel lobby's influence in leading the United States into this war is quite obvious. There's just an abundance of evidence that Israel uh pushed us into this war and that the lobby helped. Uh, and of course whenever that happens and somebody points it out, that person is accused of being an anti-semite or a self-hating Jew. But this is ridiculous. The question is whether the evidence supports the claim or not. And the debate should be fought over the evidence, not uh uh devolved to name calling, which of course exactly is what happening here is happening here. But the fact is, pier is there's overwhelming evidence that the lobby and Israel itself uh helped in a major way to push the United States into this war.
>> Well, we just have to take Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, at his own word before he was persuaded that he hadn't said what he'd said because he said it on camera. And he said that when asked why did America have to preemptively strike at Iran, he said because America had been notified by another country, clearly Israel, that they were going to attack Iran, and that the inevitable consequence would be that uh Iran would respond against American interests, including military bases in the Gulf and so on, and therefore America had to get in first and preemptively uh go in with the Israelis. It seemed at the time very convoluted but very revealing too because as we now know from Anthony Blinken, I've talked about this many times on the show since he said it because it's so relevant. I think Netanyahu had had tried to do this with both presidents Obama and Biden. He'd said, "Look, I'm going to attack Iran. Are you with me or not?" And they both said, "No." And then he didn't attack Iran. And so there are many who do believe that Netanyahu, we saw Trump, I think eight times in the run-up to this war, uh that he basically bamboozled, maybe not bamboozled, but you know, forcefully persuaded Trump that he was a going to do this and b America had to be with the Israelis. Yeah, I think it's not only Secretary of State Rubio who said that, but the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said it. And furthermore, Lindsey Graham, who is a super supporter of Israel, uh has said that he worked hard with President uh excuse me, with Prime Minister Netanyahu to give Netanyahu advice on how to convince President Trump uh to attack Iran. So, you see all sorts of evidence of Netanyahu's fingerprints uh on this uh war. We're now at a stage in this war where thousands of Marines have now been dispatched uh to uh to the conflict zone. the Iranians who must know they can't compete with the Americans and Israelis with their combined military firepower in the air uh or at sea or anywhere else frankly militarily but they can compete in this strategic economic way. Do you agree with that?
>> Sure. I mean, I think what's going on here, Pierers, is that the United States and Israel thought that uh we could win a quick and decisive victory either by decapitating the regime or some form of uh shock and awe campaign uh for the first few days of the war and the Iranians would then throw up their hands and they would submit to our demands. Uh and in fact, President Trump has said that he was told that there was a good chance uh that the Iranians would close down the straight of Hormuz, but he ignored that warning because he thought we would win a victory before that became a viable option for the Iranians.
>> But what's happened here is that we did not achieve a quick and decisive victory. And we're now in a long war, a war of attrition. And that's a war that the Iranians prepared for. Uh and that's a war that the Iranians are in an excellent position to prevail in. If you think about the various steps up the escalation ladder that we can take, what you see is that the Iranians can match us at every point. Uh, and they can cause not only enormous damage for the countries in the region and for the United States military forces that are located there, but maybe even more importantly for the international economy. they have the ability as you go up the escalation ladder uh to tank the international economy. This would be catastrophic. So we are now in a situation having failed to achieve a quick and decisive victory where we could lose in a really serious way.
>> So if you were advising Donald Trump which is I have to say at the unlikely end of the expectation ladder but if you were um what advice would you give him? He clearly, I think, wants to get out of this, but he doesn't seem to really know how he can do that, which doesn't look like a crushing defeat or retreat. What would you advise him to do, which would be a skillful and achievable way of extricating America from this war? I've thought long and hard about this and I've talked to a number of very smart people, a number of my friends who are what I would call spin misters. They can figure out almost always how to get out of a mess.
>> And I don't think anybody can get uh come up with a good solution uh for solving this problem. Uh what most people say is that what President Trump should do is declare victory and get out. I mean, he can do that, but it will be seen as a humiliating defeat for the United States. And furthermore, you run into the problem that the Iranians themselves might not agree to end the war. The United States can quit, but the Israelis and the Iranians may continue fighting. And again, as I said, the Iranians have a lot of cards to play here. They can do a lot of damage. So, even if we walk away, it's not clear that that solves the problem. And then again where I started, uh, the United States will look like it suffered a humiliating defeat. So I think that President Trump has got himself into a situation where there is really no good exit strategy.
>> Yeah, I I that's the way I see it. And I I I'm still completely baffled by politically, never mind anything else, he thought this was a good time to take the biggest gamble he's ever taken because he's got the midterms coming. You know, already he was looking like he might lose the House. He could lose the Senate over this. And then that's pretty much it. You know, as a president, if you don't have any control of any part of Congress, there's not much you can do. you can fly a few executive orders around but otherwise you're extremely limited in your power. Uh and of course the other irony of this um is that Russia is already emerging as one of the big beneficiaries of what is going on because the sanctions have been lifted. They're making uh enormous amounts of money uh from this which could carry on the longer it goes on. Um, and you got to look at it and say, how does a war you've launched against Iran that ends up with Russia benefiting with higher prices for its own uh stuff, degraded Western sanctions against it, and potential Chinese backing for new projects? How does any of that be a win for the United States?
>> Well, it's not. But to get to your initial point as to how he could have possibly got himself into this mess, I think it's very important to understand that he thought that the Iranian regime was very vulnerable. It was very weak >> and that the United States could cause it to topple with great ease. You want to remember that before the war when we moved the Armada into the Middle East, uh Steve Witco has told us that President Trump was surprised that the Iranians did not throw up their hands and surrender before the war started. In other words, President Trump expected the mere threat of force from this armada to cause Iran to surrender. And of course that didn't happen. And then he went to war thinking just a little bit of military force on the first few days uh this wouldn't be a long war. We would knock off the regime. Uh and uh I think that his success in Venezuela where he was able to uh kidnap Maduro and put an end to that conflict very quickly gave him additional confidence that he could in a sense float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Uh but the fact is that that didn't happen. And again, once that doesn't happen, he's in a catastrophic situation. But I don't think he thought for one second that that would happen. And again, that's why he could dismiss uh the Pentagon's warning that it was likely that the uh Iranians would shut down the straight. And furthermore, the warning that the Iranians would engage in horizontal escalation. They would not simply attack Israel. They would attack American assets in the Gulf and they would attack the Gulf states themselves. He just didn't see this coming. But once it came, he's in a mess that I don't see how he gets out of.
>> Yeah.
>> Why should anybody believe that? The Iranians have denied it numerous times.
>> And denied it after the president spoke.
>> Yes. and said that there have been no contacts direct or indirect and no negotiations. Of course, it's possible that there have been some contacts. It is impossible that there has been a resolution of major issues. Impossible. Um, and if this turns out to be completely false, which is at least one possibility, I think we have to consider the possibility that the president has really uh lost touch with reality. Um, something is seriously wrong. We'll find out soon enough. Um again it there's a sliver of chance that it's true but none of it rings true. Uh the Iranians have been saying very clearly in the last few days there are no negotiations. They have stipulated their terms very explicitly uh that the US must leave its uh military bases in the Gulf region. Uh must end its aggression unilaterally, must pay reparations. Um these aims have been uh uh very clearly articulated and officially articulated. uh after the president statement uh all of it was denied by the Iranians which is would be unusual if indeed there was some kind of progress. I so this is a extraordinary it's a little hard to guess definitively at this moment for us and I don't want to make a definitive judgment but if in fact >> this is as empty as as it may well be >> I think it raises questions about the president's mental soundness this is not a tactic this is delusional and very dangerous So, we will see shortly what what this really means, but it could mean something about the president's state of mind.
>> I'm going to deviate from Iran for just a moment because of some other breaking news. Perhaps the most extreme member of Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet, his Treasury Minister Belellisil Motric, uh just announced speaking for the Netanyahu government that they wish to enex southern Lebanon and make it part of Israel. Well, this is also in line with the um clear statements also by the US ambassador Mike Huckabe that Israel can claim the territories that it likes. The Israeli government is a fascist regime. It knows only violence. It also very much calls into question Trump's assertions right now because it also stated in this context that it was continuing its attacks on Iran. So if you add these things up, it seems to me that we both have a continuing war that is leading to World War II and perhaps a president that has lost touch with reality. Back to uh Iran. Uh Professor Sax, what has been the geopolitical reaction in national capitals around the world to Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump's war of choice.
>> Uh it is viewed catastrophically all over the world. There is no question in anybody's mind uh anybody that this is a war of naked aggression by two uh uh individuals uh I would add parenthetically two mentally unstable individuals. This is not a war where people debate uh well is this Iran doing this? Is this American Israel doing this? It's very clearly understood that this is a war of naked aggression without uh any uh justification whatsoever. Um interestingly, it seems to be strongly supported within Israel, which is a country absolutely uh un under a uh complete uh wall of propaganda. now and censorship. uh the Israeli public uh is uh it it seems if these opinion surveys which say 91 support 91% support for the war are are correct and I suspect them to be uh it is a war of a a kind of fascist territorial expansion and hegemony by Israel that the United States has joined that has turned disastrous that the world understands could lead to imminent calamity. I think perhaps uh again I I'm not a psychiatrist to understand Trump but it could be that he has been warned and seen over the last hours that his actions have led the world to the brink of catastrophe. And so he pulled back. I'm in Asia. The Asian stock markets collapsed today. Of course, energy prices soared today. And maybe Trump saw that coming. And again, while I'm not a psychiatrist uh to analyze this, Trump perhaps is unable to fashion any statement in which his actions are called into question. Uh and so he has fashioned a a delusion which would explain his backing off which he senses needs to be done. Again, we'll know soon enough and then more competent people than I could diagnose uh what has really happened. But given the Israeli intention to fight uh given uh the Israeli continued attacks on Tehran, given Tehran's statements, given the war intentions that Tehran has stated in the last two days, it all seems to add up to a a delusional statement by Mr. Trump.
Why would um the US have failed so miserably to think through the impact of the bombings? Why could they so horribly miscalculate thinking, "Oh, we'll kill the Ayatollah. We'll bomb some buildings in Tyran and there'll be a spontaneous uprising and liberal democracy uh will uh will flourish." Is this the nonsense that Netanyahu and MSAD fed to Trump?
>> What we're seeing is a uh a collapse of American governance. Uh not only the assertions of power by the president that he doesn't have not only the unconstitutional order, but a collapse of thought. Uh this is true not only in the instance of this war, it's true pretty much across the board. There is no thinking going on. Look at how the world was engaged in uh Trump's upheaval of the trading system in the past year which produced a catastrophic uh end to job creation. did not touch the uh the trade deficit, of course, because it's illogically unconnected. Took 150 billion dollars from the American people and then was deemed to be simply illegal. Uh well, from the beginning, and we talked about it, none of those actions made any economic sense. they were without substance from a policy point of view. Uh you had uh people of extraordinary ignorance uh pushing uh these policies. You did not have a process. There was no review. There was no uh public discussion. There was no congressional process and hearings to assess these issues. uh these were decisions made by Trump and a few incompetent people around them. So it wasn't only the assertion of nonconstitutional or extra constitutional authority. It was without a process that one would deem to be rational in any sense whatsoever or knowledgeable. If you think about this war, this is a war chosen by Trump, Hegsth, perhaps Witoff and Kushner, who knows. This is not, from all that we know, a war based on deliberation uh on the intelligence agency reports. Mr. Kent has made that very clear. So what we're seeing here is not only an unconstitutional assertion of power, we're seeing a complete and utter breakdown of competence of normal process even of rational review of options, discussions and possible consequences. So I believe that this is not only a constitutional crisis, it's a crisis of the most minimal kinds of competence. I happen to be in China now and listen to uh proceedings about China's state of economic strategy. It is detailed. It is thorough. It is forwardlooking. It is based on two years of systematic deliberation. I was with many of China's leading academics in the past day, top scholars, very brilliant people who have been part of detailed processes of review, debate, and deliberation. Whatever else one wants to say, the United States has no such process at all right now in any sphere of governance. We are not only in one person rule. We are not only in an end of our constitutional order. We are in a state of complete incompetence. And this is why the most basic points of what could happen daytoday with the actions that are being ordered are not even being considered systematically or if objections are raised by the CIA or others as was reported or by the DNI, they're not taken into account by the small gang that is I was going to say running things, but they're not running things things are running them. So this is why uh the most basic points are not even considered and perhaps it's even worse than I'm saying. Perhaps the state of delusion of the president is even more extreme than we are considering right now. I I don't know. I'm not guaranteeing that. But if it turns out that Trump's statements are false, then I think we have even another uh uh order of magnitude crisis on our hands that needs to be faced squarely.
>> Uh this may help convince you about the soundness or unsoundness uh of his uh of his thinking. Uh here is uh CNN questioning him about who's going to be in control of the Straight of Hormuz. Watch this.
>> Thank you.
>> What about the Straight of Hormuz? Who's going to be in control of that?
>> Can it be opened very soon if this works?
>> How soon?
>> And who's in control of it? Will Iran still be able to control the flow of oil?
>> Uh be jointly controlled
>> by who?
>> Maybe me. Maybe me. The
>> United States.
>> Me and the Ayatollah. Whoever the Ayatollah is. whoever the next I tell look and it'll also be a form of a a very serious form of a regime change. Now in all fairness everybody's been killed from the regime. They're really starting off. There's automatically a regime change but we're dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid. Uh the people within know who they are. They're very respected and maybe one of them will be exactly what we're looking for. Look at Venezuela. How well that's working out.
>> Wow.
>> Something is
>> maybe me and the Ayatollah will run the straight of Hormuz. This is really crazy.
>> Something may may literally be um dire and and off on all of this. Uh again, we're used to Trump lying uh every time he moves his lips. We're used to wild statements and contradictions. Uh but something uh seems even more deluded uh and more bizarre today than in the past because uh the policies have failed clearly. Uh what we saw over the weekend was not only uh Iran's credible deterrence to Trump's threat, but missile barges hitting Israel with no evidence of an Iron Dome even approaching the missiles as they were coming into several sites in Israel. So the situation could be very dire on the ground as well as uh leading to a a break uh in the president's mind attachment to reality. Again, time will tell. Maybe there's an explanation for all of this, but it's uh not very easy to see. Certainly Trump is not going to be uh running the straight of Hormuz with the Ayatollah. So these statements are these statements are utterly absurd. Uh utterly meaningless beyond Trump's normal confabulations in the middle of a war that threatens the world. And uh I just want to ask where are the senators? Are there grown-ups in Washington left? Is there a single other than Ran Paul who I think we all should utterly respect? Uh, are there any senators in the Republican party that are adults that are watching this uh and uh thinking that u the state of our republic and the world are on the line and that this is somehow normal and and to be uh lived with this way. Is there anyone that can possibly imagine at this moment that the right way to approach this issue is that our negotiators are Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner at this state of affairs in the world and that uh the president who was probably completely confabulating uh says, "Oh, there are people we're talking to. They're good people. They're they're terrific people." without naming names because he's probably making it up on the spot. It could be a profound psychological defense reaction. Who knows? But are there any grown-ups in Washington any responsibility for us?
>> Very few. I think the Republicans are are terrified of him. Whereas in reality,
>> what is terrifying? He's He's a If it's as it seems that we're in a his state of delusion, isn't that more terrifying than letting this run its course?
>> Of course. What is what are people so afraid of to find out what is true and what is not true and what is really happening and who is making uh uh who is making decisions and why it is that the deputy of of the director of national intelligence uh directly contradicted the president and that the only response is that the FBI starts to investigate him rather than asking serious questions before we are all done in by delusion. So please, somebody must be an adult in Washington somewhere in the Republican party. Honestly,
>> let me ask you uh a question involving your economic expertise. What's the fate of the petro dollar after this? I should start by saying that to my mind the petro dollar that means the invoicing of of oil in dollars or renmanb or another currency is actually not the main point although it's a very frequent meme uh these days on the internet that that the American strength uh comes from the fact that oil is denominated in US dollars. This is not exactly true. Uh it's even not remotely true. Uh the United States uh economy depends on its productivity, its workers, its technology, its physical production base and whether oil is denominated in oil in euros or renman or dollars honestly is of secondary significance. There's a bit of significance to it, but it is not the major point. The major point of this war is that we have a profound supply crisis of oil and gas uh that uh is escalating because it's not only the blockage of ships through the straight of Hormuz that is impeding oil and gas reaching world markets but the physical destruction of the oil and gas fields and of the pipelines and of the refineries. I spoke with one political leader uh just a few hours ago in uh Beijing, a very experienced international leader who said to me, "Jeffrey, I dealt with the physical infrastructure uh of oil and gas in my country. You should know how hard it is to build these refineries and this physical facil these physical facilities and how long uh and arduous will be the repairs from them. This is what threatens to push the world economy into a profound crisis. This is why the stock markets collapsed in Asia uh today. This is why I believe Trump confabulated uh in his mind a solution to a crisis that he had gotten the whole world into when he had to come up with something that somehow salved his ego after having made a catastrophic error. Again, little bit amateur psychology. Time will tell. But the fact of the matter is it's not exactly the denomination of a physical flow into this currency or that currency. There are secondary effects. I don't want to deny it. But the principal strength of an economy comes from what we produce with what technologies with what skilled labor. And those are long-term investment. Uh those result from long-term investments. And this is where everything about Trump is a disaster for the American people because we're not making any long-term investments in our country. Everything is the most short-term gimmicks. Whether it is stealing $150 billion from our pockets for his illegal tariffs or this war that somebody has rightly called not a war of choice but a war of whim that is taking place. None of this has to do with economic well-being, which is why he was ostensibly supported by his voters to help improve their living standards. Nothing is going to help that. And that would depend on us not having broken roads and airports that don't function anymore uh and government that shut down half the time uh and uh breakdown of uh our physical infrastructure all over the country. That's his job. Not starting wars of whim that can bring down the whole world economy.
>> Well, thank you for that explanation. I'm going to read you a few more oneliners which I think you'll say um reinforce your view about the rapidity with which uh he lies. The reporter asks, "We don't have this on tape, but I have the transcript. If the war is ending as you claim, do you still need 200 billion?" Oh, it's always nice to have reporter. Who is Steve Witov speaking with in Iran? Trump, a top person reporter. Who is it, Trump? I can't I don't want them to be killed.
>> Yeah, I think we're in a very very serious crisis of mental instability. Uh it's not even lies. Again, I apologize to everyone viewing. I'm guessing, but I'm watching closely. None of this adds up. None of it makes sense. If it seems to be as it is that this is confabulation, please somebody in Washington take note. This is not a game that we're playing. We're not playing a game of charades. I'm speaking to leaders all over the world in these days. This is a disaster. And grown-ups, find yourselves in Washington. Ask some questions. Find out what's going on. do your job. And Congress, just a little bit of advice to you, to our speaker and to our Senate Majority Leader, read the Constitution. Remember your oath. You are responsible for this war. You cannot wash your hands of it. Congress has the sole power to declare war. And we cannot live in the delusion of this man. We have to live as grown-ups looking rationally and honestly at the situation and something is seriously arai right now. Very seriously arry. Thank you, Professor