509: Did Israel Push Trump into War with Iran?

Did you know that fast-growing trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery

“with thousands of trees and plants in over two million happy customers?”

They have all the plants your yard or your home needs including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs and houseplants, all grown with care and guaranteeed to arrive healthy. It's like your local nursery, but anywhere you live with more plants, then you'll find anywhere else. Whatever you're looking for, fast-growing trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate, your space and your lifestyle.

That's growing trees makes it easy to get your dream yard, just click order and grow, and get healthy, thriving plants to deliver to your door. They're alive and thrive guaranteed promises your plants will arrive happy and healthy. No green thumb required just quality plants you can count on. Plus get ongoing support from trained plant experts who can help you plan your landscape.

Choose the right plants and learn how to care for them every step of the way. I gotta say the plant experts don't sleep on the plant experts here.

“Because I think we all want some greenery in our homes or in our yards, but you don't know what to buy.”

Never know. I don't know what's going to survive in New England versus California.

And their plant experts will help you. They'll help you choose the right plants. So I'll help you figure out what you want. They'll make sure it looks great. And most importantly, they will help you keep them alive because that's easier said than done. Right now, they have great deals on spring planting essentials up to half off on select plants. And listeners to our show get 20% off their first purchase when using the code world.

That's an additional 20% off better plants and better growing at fast growing trees.com. Using the promo code world that check out fast growing trees.com code world. Now is the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together. Use the code world to save today. Offers valid for limited time terms and conditions apply.

The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to ease 26th Street and Nicolet Avenue, which is where Alex Pretty was executed by Ice and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life.

“And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this?”

Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five year old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst than they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show runaway country, we go where

the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of runaway country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. Welcome back to Padsate of the World, I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, Donald Trump has launched a brand new regime-change war of choice in Iran that has engulfed the Middle East.

Thank God the administration is finally taking this seriously and putting our best foot forward

to explain that mission to the world. Let's watch. Good afternoon. The 10,000, 113 meeting of the security council is called to order. I wasn't ready for that. It was not meant to be prepared for that. I don't know how the strange mix of things inside me. Cassie? Oh my god. What an embarrassment. Anxiety. Something just triggers anxiety. Everything's making me anxious right now. She's not calming. You would think that

Balkan accent would kind of calm us down. No, no, it didn't. That was as you guys probably get down a lot. You dropped the first lady. Approved for some reason. It's presiding over a meeting of the UN Security Council. The New York Times pulled some key quotes from her speech. So Ben, she said she was there to promote these her own words, quote, "peace to education," which of course, this was just days after the U.S. or Israel bombed a school in Iran. Quote empathy for others,

transcending geography, religion, race, gender, because nothing says empathy like Trump administration. I don't know. I guess this is what they're doing at the UN these days. Can you imagine, I mean, maybe she's on a roll from the blockbuster success of the law in a documentary, paid for by Jeff Bezos at the expense of the Washington Post. But can you imagine being like some diplomat who has to sit in the chair, you know, or to hold life for this. You hold life

to be at the United Nations and use to matter so much. You're probably envisioned being in the Security Council as like the pinnacle of your career. And now you're there to talk about like

group or whatever the hell she's doing up there. I mean, it trans people or something. It's terrible.

“Is there? Well, that's the theme for today. We're going to talk through all the latest on Iran,”

and we're going to start with some excerpts from Trump's first press conference since the war

started on Saturday. The latest casually numbers in the region, what we've learned about the stunning security failure that led to six U.S. service members being killed in the administrations, total lack of planning to help people or Americans. I mean, stuck in the crossfire, sitting overseas. We'll explain how a comment from Marco Rubio has ignited a huge debate over the role Israel played and getting Trump to go to war. What role vice president, J.D.

Vance played in the deliberations and then Trump's outreach to Kurdish leaders. Why that has increased our fear of a civil war in Iran, a big time? Finally, we're going to talk about the role of the Supreme Leader in Iran in the process to choose the next one. Then we'll update you on all things Cuba and end with some fun stuff about Podsathal world fan favorite, cash but tell. And it's girlfriend. Need that update, please. Yeah, levity at the end there. Oh god.

Little something. And then I did your interview. Yeah, I talked to Yasmin and Sari, who was with us at Cricket Colors. A wonderful young member of Congress from Arizona, who's been a real progressive leader. She's also the only Iranian-American Democrat in Congress. So she has a very unique vantage point on this. We talked about the information being provided to Congress or complete lack thereof and how Democrats are thinking about things and what their strategy is going

forward. We talked about her conflicting feelings about obviously being happy to see the demise of the Supreme Leader, Hamanai, her parents had to flee Iran. But she has been strongly opposed to the war as illegal and unconstitutional. And frankly, the U.S. is not imposing a government by Donald Trump is probably not the best solution here. So we kind of unpacked all that. So

it's a pretty powerful conversation. It also kind of gives you the Congress view on things.

She's really smart and young and thoughtful and has a real connection to diaspora. And so

“it's an important interview and glad you did it. Also, thanks everybody for watching this episode”

and all the bonus episodes. We're doing, we're trying to do a lot of coverage of this work, because it really, really matters. When you subscribe to Potsay of the world, it makes a big difference. It helps people find us on YouTube, it helps us to show, go up the charts on Apple Podcasts. And it means that listeners will hear from people who are smart and decent, like Yasemin and Sari, and not John Bolton, or whoever is getting booked over on Fox News. But if Fox News is

all, it's like 2003. 100% propaganda. I have to say, and I'm not just saying this because we're now fully partnered with MS. But CNN has been pretty, you know, their diversity of opinions seems to be like having Dave Petreus and Brett McGurk on. Like it's not a lot of anti-war progressive voices popping up out there. So please do help us get this kind of information front of people, because, you know, we're seeing kind of like an American media, just not really meet this moment.

Not meet the moment at all. It feels like 2003 all over again. I don't know if you caught, there was like someone tweeted out the list of guests on where the CBS News Sunday show

“was very wise, and it was like, oh my God, war supporters, zero opponents. Yeah. What are we doing here?”

Nothing. Learning nothing. Learning nothing. Okay, then. So four days after launching this

reckless stupid war of choice with Iran, President Trump finally took questions from the media.

Let's watch an excerpt. This is him sitting with Friedrich Merz, the Chancellor of Germany. It is real for what's your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? I mean, I might have forced their hand. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. What's the worst case scenario that we have planned for in Iran? I guess the worst case would be we do this, and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the

previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst you go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in, it was no better. Most of the people we had in mind are dead. So, you know, we had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group, they may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty soon we're not going to

know anybody. I guess you have some people like them, and we haven't been thinking about too much about that. It would seem to me that somebody from within might maybe would be more appropriate. I've said that. Some of the European like Spain has been terrible. In fact, I told the Scott to cut off all dealings with Spain. By the way, we have massive amounts of ammunition,

middle and upper ammunition, which is really what we're using in this war. And we have an

“really an unlimited supply. Guess where it's Spain now. So it does seem like that the worst case”

scenario kind of occurred to them for the first time in the moment there. It doesn't give me a lot of hope in their day after planning if Israel keeps killing the people Trump thought might take over and around. He's also lying about the unlimited ammunition. Like there's tons of reporting that we're running low on intercept your missiles and T-lams. Now there's been let's let's carve off the Israel piece of this in a minute and get to that with a rubio quote,

"What were your takeaways from this little mini press conference besides what Rezipology just getting crushed there?" Well, he just keeps reinforcing the extent to which they have absolutely no plan or even expectation of what's going to happen inside of Iran. So

one possibility, which I always thought was insane and we've said this repeatedly, was this

Rezipology idea that basically the diaspora goes back and happens to run a transition. Well,

“you know, he just got reimagottoed by Trump. I mean, the same way that he took him to Smith's”

hurry to Smith's pully. Frankly, she had a lot more of a democratic claim on being in Venezuela, but put that aside. Then, you know, that's not even the worst case scenario. That's actually not, in a weird way, like, just someone who's as bad as quote, he's not even contemplating and we'll get to this with the arming curse separatists. He's not even contemplating truly seems to not understand that this could, I'm not saying it will, but this could become in

Iraq's level of civil war that kills hundreds of thousands of people and is regional only two millions and millions of refugees. Like, that's something that is possible and he just doesn't seem to at all be concerned about that or even to kind of aware of that possibility. He also seems to not feel like we talked about this a bit yesterday. There's nothing wait on his shoulders. He thinks Americans are dead. The global economies like taking huge hits. There's all this

“uncertainty and he's just like, yeah, whatever. He's kind of like low-key in it. Like, it is weird.”

I'm sort of too minds of this. Like, his tone seems weird and excessively chill there given the stakes of what he's just started. Like his entire presidency is at stake, but also he did hide from

the media for like three days, which he never does, especially in big moments. So it doesn't seem

like maybe they were worried about going out. Yeah, that's true. And, you know, the kind of had to go out with marts and so I don't know. There's just no clarity or confidence of what the hell. They cannot in this elite into it. Rubio, they can't agree on why they're at war. They can't agree on what they're at war to do. They can't agree on how long the war is going to last. This is truly profoundly unnerving. I mean, it's, it's unnerving enough when the Trump administration

is like that about some trade dispute. This is about a major war they just started with one of the larger countries in the world in the middle of the Middle East. And they literally can't stay on message over the course of a day. And the other side still shooting back. So if you just sort of like major updates to quickly take through. So on Tuesday, these really Air Force bombed a meeting of Iran's so-called Council of Experts. It's the 88 member council that is reportedly voting on

who will take over the Supreme Leader's place. You would think that many experts in one place would know not to like gather in big groups, but here we are. We're going to get to the Supreme Leader's succession process later in a show. But it seems to save to say, this will delay it in quite possibly could lead to the kind of chaos scenario you're talking about there if Iran is

never like has an opportunity to figure out leadership structure going forward.

Iranian state media now said that 175 people, most of them children, were killed by the U.S. or Israel in a strike that hit a girl's school. As a general matter, I'm like obviously a little skeptical of Iranian state media as a source. But the images in the videos from the strike are all over social media. The New York Times and much about visual investigations that confirmed this was a mass casualty incident of kids. And the school itself was adjacent to an IRGC naval base.

You can understand how it happened, but it is horrific. The Iranian request and says the Iranian death toll from the war is now up to 787 people, 40 people are dead in Lebanon, 12 in Israel, 3 in the UAE, 2 in Iraq and 1 in Oman. The death toll for U.S. service members is up to six, many more wounded. So these soldiers were all killed by Iranian drone that struck a base in Kuwait. But according to CNN, these soldiers were working in a makeshift operation center that was described

as a "triple wide trailer with office space inside." So this drone hit with no warning, no siren, nothing to alert these folks to take cover. And the fact that U.S. service members

And also we should know the Pete Hegsev on Monday lied and said the facility they were at was fortified. It was a fucking trailer. Yeah. Like it's crazy. Well, let's just focus on Pete Hegsev and how

completely and over his head he is. First of all, in his effort to project his bottomless need,

to assert his masculinity. He keeps saying things like, no more rules of engagement for

“us or some more work works. And again, that's how you get schools blown up. Like if we're going”

to have a multi week bombing campaign, maybe periodically over years and Iran, the reason you have rules of engagement is to not kill thousands of civilians. So fuck you Pete Hegsev, just because you need to show off for people because, you know, I don't know what happened to you in high school, but put that aside. Then yeah, the fortified comment, these were not, even though we've already fought, you know, not our first war with Iran in the Trump administration.

You would think that they'd have plans. They'd better plans to like have civilians go to shelters

in Israel than they seem to have for some of the guys on these bases, even though we knew

they're going to be targets. But the fortified comment too is so chilling to me because he's going to lie to us. And over again, he doesn't care if it's just an outright lie. And we're going to be looking to this man to tell us about US casualties, about the cost of the war, about the progress of the war. And you just know that he's just going to, he'll just say whatever he feels like he needs to say. And so that's, it's both horrible that they didn't,

you know, for secure our troops as well as they should have. But it's also harrowing that just kind of reinforces it, you know, we can't trust anything. I mean, I know the Pentagon said some, you know, it's past, but this is, this is a whole new ball. This is worse. Also, the fighting is escalated

between Hezbollah and Israel and Southern Lebanon, including in Bay Route. Israel Katz,

these really defense ministers, as the IDF is going to seize more territory and Lebanon to deal with that threat. So another coming attraction. Can you stop there? Because again, like one of things you hear more and more of is that Israel is creating less chaos and there's going to be territorial expansion. Yeah. And by that, it's the West Bank. It's Southern Lebanon and it's Southern Syria. So people, you know, can call me names reporting this out. I'm just saying, watch this. Like

let's watch whether they try to take actual physical territory in Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank, while this was and hold it. And then US embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been shut down. The US embassy in Riyadh was hit by an Iranian drone on Monday. The American consulate in Dubai was hit by a drone on Tuesday. It does make you worried that Iran might have found a hole in the air defenses. Because that's, you know, pretty late in the game for that to

“start getting more and more effective. State is also evacuated, non-essential staff in their families”

from six countries in the Middle East. And the State Department has advised Americans who immediately depart 14 Middle Eastern countries, but they are providing them no support. Here's Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressing Americans stranded abroad earlier on Tuesday. Here's the message I wanted to deliver Americans who are in the Middle East and in need of assistance. It is very important. And I ask this of the networks as well. It is important for you to please put both the

website and the phone numbers on your screens because we need people. We need to know where you are. We need to know we need to have contact information for Americans and need assistance. So the plan is to beg the media to put a number up on the screen. When Trump was asking why wasn't there an evacuation plan? Trump said, well, because it happened all very quickly, we thought, and I thought maybe more so than most. I could ask Marco, but I thought we're going

to have a situation where we're going to be attacked. It's like gibberish from there. So, I don't know if I'm like these guys, like hypocrisy is what it is at this point, but these guys spent years demagoguing Benghazi. They've like right-winged action porn movies about Benghazi because they love, you know, reliving it. And now we got like embassy. I mean, this is shut down American diplomacy across the entire region. Like people can't go to work because the embassies and consoles are getting

bombed. There are thousands upon thousands of people stranded in the region and the state Department can't provide the many services because the state department has been fucking broken and dozed by them and is run by a guy who's also the National Archivist and National Security Advisory of the United States. Thank you, last the Archivist job. Oh, sheddy. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. But the point is it like, when you do agencies, they can't perform basic

services like helping Americans or stuck in a war zone because your idiot president started a war.

“Yeah, Marco's like, we need the fake news media to report this. Delta.com. That's how you're getting”

know. Yeah. That's your plan. United.com. With all the, their reports shut down. I mean, this is a degree of incompetence that actually matter. Like people have family. I know plenty

terrified and the US government is doing nothing for them and the US government is the reason

they're terrified. It's because the US started a war while they were there without an evacuation plan.

“And also in Pakistan, I think 22 people have been killed in protest over the country.”

Thousands came out in support of the Iranian regime. They've stormed American embassies and and consulates in, across the country. So it's very scary. This is something we went through in the Arab Spring. I mean, a lot of these. These could get worse. These are these type of medical facilities in Pakistan in particular are Harry. That's a Harry post. It's also been, it's like, it's very hard to quantify the cost of these wars in real time financially. But a

few numbers to try to start, start, start that process. So there was a report put out by the Underloo News Agency that estimated that just in the first day, Operation Epic Fury cost $779

million dollars. They did this by trying to total up the cost of the weapons that were dropping

on places or the weapons systems where they cost to operate. For example, the USS Gerald Ford cost about $6.5 million per day to operate. Oil prices as of this recording are up about 10%

“since last Friday. Obviously a lot. It is still nothing compared to what will happen if Ron”

actually closes the Strait of Hormuz. Along those lines, Trump posted this weird message saying he directed the US government to provide political risk insurance for all maritime trade through the person. Oh, yeah, really, I in the ball. If your mom is stuck in the middle of least, you're fucked. But, you know, let's get some political risk insurance to some hedge fund guy that has a trade on some energy. Yeah. Well, he also said the US will begin to scorting tankers through the

Strait of Hormuz. You can imagine the cost of escorting every tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. And then again, as we mentioned yesterday, like, this has just been hugely disruptive to commerce all across the Middle East, especially like Dubai. Amazon said that three of its facilities in the UAE in Bahrain have been damaged by drone attacks. That is messed with AWS data centers, banks in the Emirates are having to work around low staffing. So like, the economic fallout

is just beginning. Oh, it's going to be billions upon billions and billions of dollars. And look, again, the Gulf is going to change their security paradigm. I mean, there's no way they want to do tomorrow. But this kind of reliance on the United States to be the shield around us so that we can have our prosperous secure, you know, existence has been shattered by this war. The lack of regard that the United States has for these countries that it's like, well, start the war. You're going to

get bombed. We're going to prioritize missile defense for Israel, not you. I mean, the reports that Qatar and the UAE are like, you know, have a weak war last. We're the interceptor missiles. And then what, what's the plan? I mean, I do just want to, the pod started, you know, we've had highs and lows. Like, I'm like, hello, people who voted for Donald Trump. Like,

“I don't think so. Is this what the fuck you wanted? I mean, or go find, this is insane. What is happening?”

Put your phone on speaker or run down the street, find someone in the red house and play it. What is happening? And it's insane that like anyone would even try to kind of sane watch this if like, well, we took out the supreme leader. Like, what is going on here, people? Did you, I saw Tom Cotton on TV saying that Iran is posting imminent risk to the United States for 47 years? That's, that's where we're at. That's where we're at. That's where we're at. That's where we're at. That's where we're at. It's only defencing and making this.

That's it. The world is brought to you by Surfshark. You ever look up one mildly specific thing online and then suddenly you're parted with ads? Yes. All the time, shoes will follow me around to every website I've ever been to just because I happen to cool something on Instagram on YouTube and your email. It's like the internet decided that one search is your entire personality now. That's because everything you do online gets tracked when you search, when you watch and even where you're browsing

from and using the internet without protection today, that is basically announcing your business

on a megaphone. Surfshark helps shut that down. It encrypts your internet connection and hides your real IP address, so your activity stays private. Whether you're at home or on public Wi-Fi at an airport or hotel, your data is locked up tight. Surfshark VPN also lets you change your virtual location with one click, so your physical location doesn't limit what you can access online. Surfshark's clean web feature blocks ads, trackers and malware before they even load,

which means fewer creepy popups and smoother browsing overall. They've also got tools like an email breach checker and scam alerts to help you avoid fishing attempts. Look, as in 2026, you want to VPN. There are too many companies out there tracking you. There's malware. There's crappy popups. There's just a horrible experience on the internet if you are not using a VPN. Surfshark will take care of you. We highly recommend it and you only need one account for unlimited devices.

That's your phone, your laptop, your tablet, smart TV. Everything is covered. Go to surfshark.com/pstw or use code pstw to get four extra months of surfshark VPN

Surfshark gives you your search history, deserves boundaries.

Positive world is brought to you by Remy. I've been using Remy for years long before their response or long before you guys ever heard me talk about them. You're given I card love it. I don't. At one point along the way in my life, I realized I was waking up every morning with like jaw pain and stress and tension in my neck and in my head and I realized it doesn't sound like you. And I realized it was because I was plenching my teeth the night and grinding my teeth too.

And when you go to the dentist to get a night guard, it's so expensive and it takes so long

“and Remy you can do it at home and that's why I trust Remy to protect my teeth using their”

custom night guard along with, I think, 350,000 other Americans. What they do, they're clinically tested in FDA clear to prevent teeth damage from grinding to reduce jaw tension and facial muscle strain and improve your sleep quality. You get the same professional quality and comfort as a night guard from the dentist at 80% less of the cost. You take the impression yourself at home. It's super easy. So here's how it works. After a purchase, they send you an impression kit to your

house. You follow this very easy step-by-step instruction guide to make an impression. You send it back, Remy then crafts and ships your custom fit night guard and you get it back and you start protecting your teeth. It's super easy. It's fast. I have not only updated it when I've gotten dental work. They also will send you a new one every six months if you just want a clean fresh night guard. So protect your teeth with Remy by using the code world to get 50% off your new

night guard. That's 50% off at shop remi.com/world with code world. Thank you Remy for sponsoring this episode. Let's get into this sort of question of how this works out. Since you and I talked yesterday, this clip of Secretary of State Marco Rubio talking about why the US went to war with Iran has exploded onto the Internet. This is like 10 tweets by me last night. So let's watch Rubio then let's unpack and talk about it. I don't understand what the confusion is. Let me explain

it to you and I'll do it once again. It's clearly possible. Perhaps you'll report it that way.

There's two reasons why now. The first thing that was abundantly clear that if Iran came

under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. If we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against the American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them

before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed. And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and did. All right. So I'm trying to unpack this in the kind of most charitable, like measured way I can because I know this is like a very sensitive piece of this conversation. But to what Rubio was trying to claim there is that the US new Israel was going to target Iran, which would lead to a retaliation

by the Iranians against US bases in the region. Therefore, the US had to strike Iran first as a preemptive defensive effort, apparently telling that Nya, who not to start a war, was not an option. So this line of spin from Rubio evolved from an even more ridiculous claim that we saw over the weekend that was made during a White House briefing call for reporters, where an official said the war started because there was an imminent threat of a preemptive Iranian attack on

US bases in the Middle East that would have led to mass casualties. Rubio was clarifying that

“that imminent threat was actually the Iranian response to Israeli Israelis struck first, right?”

Somehow the US and Israel were never the aggressor in these situations.

Rubio's quote is being widely taken as confirmation that the US went to war because of Israel. This is not like a far left thing. It's not a far right thing. It is everywhere. And of course, you know, the usual suspects are basically telling people who take Rubio's words at face value that makes you an anti-Semite. But I think we should look at the totality of the evidence. So there's that quote we played from Rubio. Tom Cotton said something nearly identical on Fox,

Tom Cotton said Israel face an existential risk and they were prepared to strike around alone. If that happened to Ron was very likely to target our troops, that may address the question of why now. So, you know, Cotton is definitely got the talking points there. The New York Times said in February, Netanyahu spent three hours persuading Trump to go to war in like whatever's eighth visit to the Oval Office since Trump took office. And then as we mentioned yesterday, Netanyahu

put out a statement after the war started, "Brag me about how he's been waiting for this moment

“for 40 years in a partner like Donald Trump." So Ben, as I've said before, like I think there's”

you forgot Mike Johnson. What did Mike Johnson say? Israel was determined to act with us or without us. So, Ergo, we had to join because we would have gotten drawn in. So Mike Johnson, Speaker that's also said the same thing as Rubio and Cotton. Got it. Good addition. Thank you. So again, like I get trying to be charitable here. Like I've said before, I still believe you. That I think that's about Trump's ego, right? He loves the isolation. He loves to be told,

Lindsey Graham is, you know, fluffing up, you're like, whatever. Tell him he's a historic figure.

Sorry. Those are doing a six, seven thing on his pulse. But I do think like it is two reasons in my mind. Ego and then like the pressure from Netanyahu because Rubio conceded, like the answer to why did this start on Saturday is because we knew these Israelis were going to act. And like bigger picture, if you say, well, they're still this threat from the Iranians.

“I just do think you have to be honest that there is no imminent nuclear threat. It's not one”

that's that's months or even over a year away, right? It's buried under the ground. There is no imminent threat to the US from Iran's ballistic missiles. That is like a 2035 timeline, including to the Defense Intelligence Agency. And the protesters Trump said that he was going to save with a military strike are all dead. And I've been dead for a while now. As are the three people he wanted to lead around the country. And then three after them and three after them.

Yeah. So like even this new spin that Iran could produce so many conventional weapons that they created a conventional umbrella to protect their nuclear program. Rubio says in that same press event that they were a year away from that threshold. So again, like I'm trying to be charitable. I get this sensitivity. But like this war started on Saturday because he is railies wanted it to. Yes. Like I argue that. I'm this who else supported it, too. I mean, we've talked about this.

You cannot like Lindsey Graham and is the Israeli government are kind of some of the only individuals like, you know, I don't know, John Bolton. Do you buy this report? Do you see the Washington Post that's on the homie in Saaman was calling to lobby to go to war? I do not buy that report. It's the only they've reported it. I did not hear that. I've been talking to people on the Gulf from before this war. Egypt was against this publicly and they don't really do

things without checking what the Saudis first. That felt like somebody else wanting to kind of

spread this around, right? And the Saudis denied it immediately and pretty vocally, too. I have anyone else's podcast knows, I'm not like some big fan of the Saudis. But if you look at what Saudi Arabia has done in the last few years, my homie been Salman did a rapprochement with the Iranian government. He wanted stability. Why would he do a rapprochement with them, you know, broke it by China and then turned around and be like, you know what I want? I want

to like topple regime with no plan for what comes after. And I have my, you know, the the veneer of security that I've created in this country shattered by Iranian drones and have aromco, Saudi Ramco fields, or fields on fire. And no, I just don't believe that. So I'm not say, I'm not blaming Israel entirely at all. This is Donald Trump's fault. Nor is it absolving Iran of the bullshit they did. But like, and I actually want to be very clear about this. Because like this, when he said

this yesterday, first my reaction was, I can't believe he said that. It's like the classic

gap where you say the truth. Like everybody else has been spinning and Rubio is actually telling the truth. And then I thought they cleaned it up, which they did today. But yesterday they tweeted out Rubio's comment from the White House rapid response account. Did you see that? No. Like, like, I mean, this was not something they were like hiding. Um, and it just, it's what

“everybody has been seeing. Like, why is the BBNN now come to visit Donald Trump seven times, right?”

He, he, he, the last time the 12 day war, he got Trump into that one. But he, the Israel actually started bombing. And then it was like, come on, guys, like, you better get involved here, you know? So it's been very evident that Israel wants us. They have not concealed the fact that they want to do it. Um, and like the thing that is, the, so maddening is that Trump can say no. Like, absent from any of these comments by tough guys like Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio is the

notion that a BB comes to Trump or any president of the United States, because he came to Obama wanted to bomb Iran. I'm sure he came to Biden wanted him to bomb Iran. Obama said no. Biden said no. Like George W Bush said no to that. And this guy started the Iraq war. And Donald Trump can say no. I'm not going to do this. No, by the way, I'm not going to support you doing it either right now, because it puts our people at risk. That is an option that is available to them that has been taken

by every US president not named Donald Trump in the 21st century. Yeah. And so it's not some

“fader company. And I just want to say like, if you want to call us all anti-semites for just”

pointing out the reality that this is at least a part of what happened. It's not, again, not the whole reason. Then that term means nothing anymore. Like, it's, it's, it's so dangerous to do that, because like, people are like, I'm watching this. And I've got a video of the Prime Minister of Israel saying he's wanted to do this for four years and finally got down from to do it. And then if I like repeat those words out loud, I get called an anti-semite. Then the term means nothing anymore.

And also you should read these really press and how critical they are. And yeah, I don't want

it matters. I get it. But like, just the most cynical people in Washington, DC are lobbying this attack

“in Kong people anti-semites when you just point out what Rubio said. And I think, look, I think what”

Rubio said was the truth on some level. Certainly is a part about the timing. And also is going to do extraordinary and lasting damage to support for Israel within the mega world. Because now it is going to be taken as an article of faith that we are at war with Iran, because of Israel and everything that bad that comes after will be tagged with Iran. Also, one other thing on run by you then. So I have a really good friend who occasionally will geek out and like

Ford articles me like, what do you think of this? So he forwarded me this piece from the free press. I want to read you a little bit that sort of like talking about what the free press is arguing

this person and the free press is not bad. Is there real reason for the war? These are all quotes.

America is in this fight because of China. Specifically, it is about dismantling the most significant Chinese forward-based outside of East Asia. Then it goes on to talk about like Chinese weapon sales to Iran, like Iranian adoption, Chinese technology that is like a little skeptical. The picture that emerges from all of this is of a Chinese forward-based, a lynch pin of the country's naval architecture, cyber efforts and economic belt and road influence program every

element of the Chinese power projection and empire building positioned at the throat of the global oil supply armed with weapons designed to penetrate advanced American defenses and kill American sailors and a bedded in a strategic architecture whose explicit purpose is to constrain American

“military freedom and any feature conflict over Taiwan. I was like, what do you think of this article?”

And I was like, look, first blush, like if this war was about China, I think the administration would say that because that would be like the most popular thing you could probably say politically, like war with Iran on to take out the Chinese like that would be a winner. This criticism of Iran for buying Chinese tech is probably because we've sanctioned them and refuse. What are they going to buy our tech? And then finally, this idea that this is like a forward

operate, like I think if anything, those war with Iran is weakening our ability to fight of war with China pretty substantially, as we've talked about with the you know, dwindling supply of Tomahawk missiles and others. But I just wanted to get your blind reaction to this article

and I mean, this is coming from, literally I'd never heard this argument before.

I was going to say first of all, like I've had to follow this Iran issue as of you closest anything else in my life, you know, for the last 12 years. And I've never heard that argument made. Like I mean, it's bonkers. I mean, the two things I say about it are number one, this war is helping China in measurably, right? Because it's just further making the United States seem chaotic and an aggressor and a source of instability in the world to every other country, you know,

you know, like some, you know, as we talked about, some of these Europeans and like Mark Karnier are seemingly unable to find a voice on this thing. But let's just take the actual swing regions of the world, the global south, like I guarantee you that this world war is terrifying them and is going to drive them closer to China. And then also the idea that the Chinese we're going to like project power through Iran, it's just not actually the people that are super

apocalyptic about the spreading influence of China, they focus more on this kind of belt road through the Indian Ocean down to Africa and then into Latin America. I could actually, I heard a lot more arguments that Chinese presidents and influence in Venezuela was dangerous than this.

“Do they sell, do they buy a bunch of whirl from Iran? Yeah, do they sell their tech there?”

Yeah, because their sanction, Iran's not going to sell anywhere else. But no, I think that's a garbage rationale. Very surprising article. The other, like really interesting political story about the deliberations around going to war with Iran is the role JD Vans played. So JD Vans is the vice president and he famously wrote an op-ed with the headline "Trump's best foreign policy, not starting any wars." That one age, well, but the New York Times and now several other outlets

have reported that Vans actually pushed Trump to start a bigger war with Iran. So remember, there were reports that Trump might order a limited strike to pressure the Iranians to make an ideal. Vans reportedly convinced Trump to go, quote, "Go big and go fast." So that was remarkable to me, Ben. I mean, it should not surprise anyone that JD Vans is completely full of shit and he's, you know, kind of like upended all his beliefs. But I do think politically, like, he now owns

whatever disaster comes out of this just as much as Trump as his Marco Rubio. And like, I don't know, like, if things in Iran go the way that they think they're going to go, it does open up a pretty big lane for a, like, actually anti-war anti-interventionist, maga voice in 2028. I don't know who that would be. It could be Thomas Massey or somebody. Could be Tucker Carlson. Could be, it could be Tucker Carlson actually. Yes. Now, yeah, because the point and one thing I'd say about this is that

you know, but then said, "Go big." But he won't comment, but it was such a clearly sanctioned leak,

“you know, you can tell these things. Yeah, it was everywhere. But here's the language. Here's the thing,”

he can precisely because he cannot publicly say anything bad at Trump or else he's going to be kneecapped. You can leak all he want. He's going to own this just as much as Trump. And the same history of Rubio, because, you know, up to the moment that the next Republican nominee is nominated, they have to kiss Trump's ass and can't say that Trump's anything wrong. It's like he can go out and say, like, "I was against this and this didn't mistake." Like, Donald Trump would, you know,

this rate him if he does that. So he owns this as he should. And the far right of the Republican party is in revolt. It's not just Tucker Carlson, who is Apple Black to go over the war.

And Nick Fuentes is going nuts, calling Trump a joke. Megan Kelly has been pretty critical. A lot of,

like, kind of, naga influencer types. Like, there is a, there is a very early body of concern about what's happening in Iran that you did not see around Venezuela or at least not to this extent. No, no, and it's, and it's real because it's tapping into something that the, the maga, maga voters, like, like, we've talked about the fact that they're anti war, but some of them are veterans who fought in multiple tours and felt completely betrayed by their government, right?

And, and so it's emotional, too. It's not just, you know, this is not just like a, and they're a lot of checklists. They're right to be pissed. They're a lot too. There's been a lot of TikTok stories about how to work in together. Just for for non nerds, a TikTok story is kind of like when the White House press office brings you in and they do like a behind the scenes blow by blow of how something happened. A couple little anecdotes from the financial

times version that I jumped out of me. So the FT says that the traffic cameras in Tehran got hacked

“by the messod and those images are being transmitted to Israel and that's how they were tracking”

government leaders, including knowing that the spring leader was going to be like at that office when they bombed it at the time. So it's sort of interesting to learn. They also apparently were able to disable cell phone towers in the area, so known calling a warning. And then interestingly then

so the FT said these really new of hominase movements via this second channel, but the CIA had a human

source. So interesting if true also, you know, maybe don't leak that while the war is in like day four guys. But you know, that's the thing I felt I have to say, look, it's interesting, you know, what a surprise the messod and the CIA have good intelligence. But I mean, we were like chuckling about the fact that the CIA was doing this giant victory lap over identifying the location of hominase in his office. But it points to like a bigger point, like Trump clearly like

loves this initial round of, you know, the way that the American media chooses to cover wars, which is like I find these stories go a task to tell the truth. And I'm not criticizing the journalist,

“like they, like you know, you have to, I'm kind of criticizing that the people that went out”

to do these TikToks, you know? Like, it's two guys that did some TikToks back in the day. I know, but like, I don't know that, but not like this. I mean, honestly, like we did on like been lot in operation, Afghanistan. But a lot of it was just like, look, the TikTok story is

a first draft of history, trying to explain the thing, how you came to an argument. I grew

through that there is a version of it that is like preening and like false heroism, and I don't know. I guess what I'm getting at is that a huge web trying to say. So I'll men, what I say, there's the TikTok stories are a part of like just how you tell a story out of a communications office. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that they seem to have put more thought into the TikTok stories than about their strategy. Oh, absolutely. That's that's the thing that pisses me off

is it like they have the time to go out and be like, here are the intricate details of how we like turned off traffic lights and you had a human source and found the spring leader and killed them. And then if you ask that same spokesperson, what is the objective of this military operation? They can't answer that. And so like Trump loves this part of the war, you know? It seems like he's taken 19 calls from random reports, like including like some Rachel Bade's sub-stack,

like he's so far down the college. It seems like he doesn't get that this isn't working out. It's not helping. It's not helping. He's putting out competing messages. He's down the incoherent all over the place. They've completely abandoned the like rise up regime change message. Oh, let's let's get to that. So we've talked about how like we're concerned that this could, you know, spill into a civil war that Iran could split,

that you could see like ethnic respectarian fighting. You've mentioned the blue separatists who are Sunni Muslims who primarily live on the border of Pakistan and have a separatist kind of like

According to Axios, Trump called several Kurdish leaders in Iraq either on Sunday or Monday.

“The Wall Street Journal confirmed that reporting and then said that Trump is willing to provide”

support to groups in Iran who are willing to take up arms against the Iranian regime. I assume that means weapons, wealth that support is not worth anything. And then in Israeli outlet called Israel Highum, which is owned by Miriam Adelson, ran a piece with the headline quote,

"The American Israeli plan chaos will push for a coup against revolutionary guards." So it seems

like the Trump administration and the Netanyahu gang, they're not just like kind of unconcerned about civil war in Iran, but they might be actively actively contributing to it, starting by supporting these groups like the Kurds. And then again, like so what they're asking is these little ethnic minority groups to go to battle against the IRGC, which is according to FTA about 190,000 strong and they're heavily armed. They have their own intelligence component,

they have their own Navy, they have their own Air Force, they have their own economic interests, they have their own relationship with terror groups like Hezbollah. And then you have the Basij militia,

“which is this civilian paramilitary force that ranges from like hundreds of thousands of”

members in size to over a million and depending on which analyst you believe, you know,

it's like they can look, they can, they're controlled by the IRGC, but sort of more loosely.

And so it's just it's hard to think of a worse scenario for average Iranians, civilians than like this faction of Kurds trying to do battle with the IRGC and everybody else at just stuck in the middle. This is the single worst possible idea that you could pursue. And I really mean that. And that like, we're going to be wrong about some things we predict, nobody knows everything that's going to happen. I do know that this is a bad idea.

You have like the obviously Persian is a biggest group in Iran, but you have significant ethnic minorities. The Kurds have long-standing ties to Israel and they've been plenty of reports. The Israelis have used Kurds for, you know, certain operations inside of Iran in the past. And the Blucistan separatists, that's a real separatist movement that has clashed violently

“with Iranian security forces and that crosses the border in the Pakistan in the same way.”

That's the Kurds. That the Kurds cross the border into Iraq. And so what you could get is a situation. If you're arming Kurdish and then potentially Bluc separatists, you are not just causing a potential civil war like in Lebanon or in Syria or in Iraq where it became a sectarian conflict and you know how violent those can get, you are potentially making it a regional sectarian war. We're all the sudden the Iraqis and the Turks are like, do we have to go back into northern

Iraq to fight the Kurds in this country and then Pakistan comes into fight the Bluc separatists. And then suddenly what Pakistan and Turkey are involved in the Iran civil war, this is a nightmare scenario and it's not the way to do this. I could not believe when I read that. I couldn't understand what you're calling Kurds. It's crazy. But unless the strategy is chaos. And again, like the cynical view of these really strategies make it violent chaos,

then we have regional hagemony because everybody else is kind of consumed with their own problems as in Lebanon. But before we take a break, just two great ways to support progressive independent media. First of all, everyone should subscribe to your sub-stack. Yes, I will be now be releasing a new one tonight about to run. So please check me out on sub-stack notes on the stories we tell. The name of the sub-stack. But you can just look up and wrote some

sub-stack. You are prolific. You are also polishing stuff on the New York Times.

I have a New York Times piece that came out yesterday too. Then never sleep. Also, please,

if you really want to help what we're doing here at Kurd media and you want to support progressive independent media, please consider becoming a friend of the pod and join our subscription community. Yet lots of great stuff. You get positive America only friends, which is basically a bonus episode of Podsive America every week. You get a newsletter from PSA editor, Returlin, Podsive America editor, Returlin. We call it PSA for short, but I'm the scenes, you know,

how does it? It's a kind of insight in for you. That's right. You had bonus content like polar coaster with Dan Fyfer. You'd add free episodes. And all of that money goes to supporting progressive independent media. It helps us reduce our dependence on these shitty tech platforms. And you get a great fun. Community of fellow crooked listeners to talk with on discord. So crooked.com/friends, stop, subscribe now, crooked.com/friends.

Podsive World is brought to you by Better Help. International Women's Day is about celebrating progress, but also a reminder to check in on the women behind that progress. Women carry so much often at the expense of their own piece. This March lets shift the focus back to you. Therapy offers a space, you deserve to recharge, reflect, and reset. Better helps quality therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US.

Better help does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and their 12 or more years of

If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time

“from their tailored recommendations. With over 30,000 therapists, better help as the world's”

largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And it works

within average to 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. Guys is 26. You want to talk to somebody. There's a lot going on out there. Talk to a therapist. It'll help you a lot. It'll make you a better person. It'll make life better. You will wonder why do I do this earlier. Your emotional well-being matters. Find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/crucadworld.

That's BetterHelpHELP.com/crucadworld. Positive world is brought to you by Simply Safe. If you're like me, you're to sensitize the dozens of notifications on your phone each day. But the latest paying is from your security camera, ignoring it could spell disaster. Picture this. Someone is breaking in, but you're giving a huge presentation at work.

Your movies are on a flight at 30,000 feet. You'll see the footage in a couple of hours.

“But by then, it is too late. That's why you need Simply Safe. Simply Safe is a customizable”

whole home security system. Back to 24/7 by monitoring agents. You can rely on to act even when you can't. I set up as Simply Safe. Incredibly easy to do. You customize it on the website.

It comes in the million installed and manner of minutes and then the app. Incredibly easy to use

and reliable. The customer support was great and really reliable. So I recommend it. Traditional security systems only act after someone has already broken in. That is too late. Simply Safe's active guard outdoor protection can help prevent break-ins before they happen. While other security companies lock you in, Simply Safe comes with no long-term contract. They earn your trust every day by keeping your safe and satisfied. They're so confident in the

protection they provide. They even back it in with an antithept guarantee. I'm not the only one Simply Safe protects over 4 million people. They have 20 years of experience in home security. They were just named Best Home Security System of 2026 by U.S. News and World Report. They have been named the Best Customer Service in Home Security with industry-leading customer satisfaction scores to prove it. Right now, my listeners can get 50% off their new Simply Safe

System at SimplySafe.com/Crickadworld. That's SimplySafe.com/Crickadworld. There's no safe, like SimplySafe. All right, Ben, so the Supreme Leader is dead. As we mentioned at the top, Tuesday, these really bomb the meeting where they're supposed to be a vote to replace them. So there might be a leadership vacuum for a bit. Although, as we are recording,

there's a bunch of people are tweeting about one report. There's reports about the Supreme Leader's son being named a harmonious son, being named the Supreme Leader, which is something that kind of wanted to be very likely scenarios, because the perception for a long time with how many was trying to kind of grease the skids for his son, who is a hardliner, who is very close to the RGC, so this would not be a reformist guy,

but who knows? He could have been killed in that striker. Right. We just don't know. It's not confirmed yet. But if he is the person, just that is a reinforcement of a hard line and he'll obviously be targeted

“for assassination, too. Yeah, and I think I already was targeted for assassination.”

So let's talk for a minute about who I told Harmonet was in the process to pick his replacement. So Harmonet was 86, as we've said, he had been in power for almost 37 years, but his legacy went back to 1979 in Islamic revolution, because he came to power in '89, but it had served two terms as Iran's president. So what comes next will be only the

second leadership change in Iran's post-revolution history, which is pretty incredible if you think about it.

Harmonet was a truly awful person, and I think by every conceivable measure, a failure is a leader. I mean, he wasted billions of dollars on a nuclear program that never got him a nuke. He wasted billions of dollars supporting proxy forces like Hezbollah that did not keep him or his country safe. And I think the economists kind of specifically put it when they said he was the man who quote, "kept Iranians isolated from the world from more than three decades, who ruined their economy,

and who when they dared to speak out against his misrule ordered them slaughtered by the thousands." Well said, but in Iran's system, the Supreme Leader is everything you're a representative from God, the Commander of the Armed Forces, the final of the Citer and Politics. So the next Supreme Leader will be chosen by a group called the Assembly of Experts. That is that group of 88 clerics who apparently were meeting today and bombed so not sure what that means for the process going forward,

but I guess we'll find out. Again, you mentioned one option, the current Supreme Leaders or the Supreme Leader's son, there's a bunch of speculation out there. I was going to text her a bunch of names, and then I realized no one knows who we're talking about, and also Trump seems to think they're all getting killed. Yeah, you're dropping like Leron Johnny's name earlier. Yeah, okay, that poor guy. You'd sort of, Leron Johnny's name gets pushed out there right if you really start like taking out

people. Well, he's kind of like the guy who's like in his role is kind of like in that movie about the selection of the Pope, the guy who's supposed to facilitate the process or it's like Dick Cheney, like selecting the VP. You know, so he's supposed to be, but look, I think the one point about

is that there were alternatives in the sense that this was not a monolithic system and periodically at multiple points in the history of the Islamic Republic, there have been presidents, even of the Islamic Republic who wanted to move in a different direction. By the way, I used to get all this shit people, but there's no such thing as a moderate. No, there are. There are people that are more moderate than, you know, fucking Hamanay, Hamanay or Cossam Soleimani, the head of the

RGC, and Hamanay would not let them do that. You know, he'd always keep it on such a short lease

that he couldn't truly explore what it would be like to open the exhibit inside the country or to try to have a more meaningful dateante with the West. So, you know, he's someone who had different alternatives available to him, even within the system they constructed. Point is it, I know most Iranians who don't like the Islamic Republic just wanted to go away and I get that, but he could have chosen to have a like a less extreme version of the Islamic Republic and he wouldn't

even do that. And now he's, you know, now he's met his end. Yeah, Twitter will get very offended if you ever pointed out that there might be differing political views in Iran. It's um, they're just a different sense of just a flatness society. Yeah. Well, I mean,

there's Rouhani, the president that Obama was dealing with, but then there was the green movement,

right, which those were people, most of the who was the green candidate in the 2009 election, was from within the system. Like, you know, they weren't like coming, coming to overthrow the government, they were running through the process, you know, and so there were these political figures available who could have led to a different type of Islamic Republic. Yeah.

“He always wanted, he always chose the hardest line. And then you have, uh, Akbiditachad, who I think”

these really just bombed him for sport. I mean, I want to see if they, if they did kill him, that's strange and kind of twisted because he's not a active politician. Do you think it was possible concern that he could be a future leader and they wanted to take him out or just like straight vengeance? I still look in the guy that defending that guy, he was a creep in the Holocaust in there, but like near as I can tell, he's been like, you know, tweeting about American sports and like,

I don't think he's an active politician. So I, I said to you, it'd be like if someone did a regime change here and, and like, kill Dan Quail, you know, it's like, what, I don't really know. But it does, yeah. It does just make it feel like vengeance, and that's not a good way to do these things. It does

make it seem like a blood sport, although I always will think of that SNL skate where they talk

about him looking like a fly Jake Jones. Anyway, anything else on around for we go to Cuba? No, I mean, well, we'll stay on top of this. I, I would just say that we'll try to do our best to be as straight as we can without being like hyperbautically negative or, you know, Rosie. And today's is one of the days where it just doesn't feel very good. Yeah, that could maybe

“we would have a better day tomorrow, but like, honestly, it just, like, these are not good indicators.”

It's pretty unsettling. And thank you for watching. And thank you again for subscribing to Potsay the World on YouTube or wherever you're podcasts. All right, let's turn to Cuba Ben. Gazam, for any of the show, Lindy Graham kind of set the stage for our conversation today in this brief excerpt from his Fox News interview. Let's watch Cuba's next. They're going to fall. This communist dictatorship in Cuba. Their days are numbered.

How many martinis do you think you had before that? I mean, it's just an extraordinary, like the man's whole MO is to just get seemingly completely hammered and just scream about bombing different countries. The man regime change something is deeply wrong with that guy. So we have discussed several times previously the humanitarian situation in Cuba. It isn't just dire beyond dire. The US had blocked all foreign oil ship in Sikuba. Then last week, they amended the policy

to allow US companies to send fuel to businesses in Cuba. It sounds like the idea is to help private companies also somehow end running the government to promote capitalism or something,

“something. I don't get how that would work in fact. Do you think it's bullshit?”

I talked to some experts about this. And the thing is, you know, the stated strategy, right, is that you're trying to help the private sector. But how do you get it to them? The people who will be able to take advantage of this in Cuba are the people who have some means in connection. In connection. So the people that are starving are not going to benefit from this at all. So this feels more like a messaging exercise than some actual rational policy to alleviate

the humanitarian crisis that the United States is creating. Yeah. Last week, Trump said the US is holding talks with Cuba and said, quote, "Maybe we'll have a friendly takeover of Cuba." And he also said, Cuba is to put it mildly, a failed nation. It's really right now a nation and detrable and they want our help and quote. So Axios reported that Marco Rubio has been talking with Raoul Castro's grandson about God knows what, I guess, transition. But what brings us,

would be liberators of Cuba and a Cuban border patrol boat. This went down last Wednesday. This

“is speedboat with 10 guys on it of Cuban descent. Two of whom are American citizens took off from Florida”

to Cuba. They reportedly brought with them, high powered rifles, nearly 13,000 rounds of ammo, starlinks, satellite kits, drone and then a bunch more combat gear. The Wall Street Journal says their goal was to quote infiltrate the island, little by little in Spark or Rebellion against a bankrupt regime, according to the Cuban authorities, the patrol boat approached the speedboat, where upon the men on the speedboat opened fire and in the end three men were killed and seven were

wounded. One Cuban soldier was injured. According to the journal, quote, "relatives of the men said the men lack military training and capabilities and that they had unrealistic expectations." And quote, you don't say. So then the cover to this like the kind of Timo, Cuba regime change operation makes it sound like these guys were very naive. They did something very stupid and they

probably did it on their own, but you never know. It does bring back memories of like the

operation, Mongo, CIA, you know, executed, paramilitary bullshit we used to do. Like the CIA funded lots of efforts to fuck with the Cubans that were short of the bay of pigs is the kind of like short answer here. And then there's some speculation, these articles that Cuban intelligence was onto these guys because this patrol boat intercepted them, like kind of in the middle of nowhere during the day with the fuel shortage, etc. I don't know, curious what you made of all that.

And then second, like, Rubio talking to Castro's grandson is at the right channel. So first of all, I'd entirely believe all that these guys did this. And look, you know, it's replicating, I mean, Fidel and Raul Castro landed in a small boat, the grandma Cuban, they were like seven guys. Now they were a little bit more if you logically coherent than these people. Not saying I agree with that ideology, but they had a plan.

There's a lot of this. There's a lot of this kind of sabotage operations. There's the history of Operation Mongoose, there are a lot of groups down in Miami that would like to over throw the Cuban government. And I don't put it past Tommy, some Trump associates kind of, you know, maybe saying oh, great idea. I mean, we had this in Venezuela. Funny on the side, but yeah, the guys in Marolago were meeting with like ex special forces guys who tried to do a coup in Venezuela, and got arrested.

The Cuban intelligence is deeply embedded in these Miami networks. That was my sense. When I, I mean, I used to tell people in Miami, like, you know, some of the Cubans would joke with me that the U.S. democracy funding was funding some of their intelligence, because they're thoroughly penetrated. Don't think it was me. Miami dissident groups, you know, some of like these guys were talking politics out of Versailles, which is like a face.

“Well, yeah. No, and I, and I, but I'm not siding, but I believe that the Cubans have these groups”

pretty penetrated too. In terms of the average, I negotiated for, you know, three and a half years with Alejandro Castro, where Al Castro's son. I will say that Raul Castro and his family are more pragmatic than the hardliners. And in fact, they got sideline in part because they did the opening with us in the Obama administration. The, the Vidal had not really supported it at that much. In fact, kind of opposed it in, in a lot of ways. And that a lot of the hardliners after Trump

yanked the rug on them said, "Oh, see what you did, like, you know, we never should trust

to the Americans." And so you got much more hardline people kind of running Cuba. And it's not Diaz Canal as a president. There's kind of like a collection of hardliners. So the idea, Raul still has a lot of power and he's still the ultimate kind of supreme leader as it were. He's in deep in his 90s. So that's one destination to go, but what are you negotiating? Because what Trump is totally wrong about is friendly takeover. This, this is a regime deeply committed to

its own survival. They're negotiating to try to survive, not to have a friendly takeover. I mean, this guys, and just the idea that we're talking about the regime change in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, and within, like, the first quarter of this year is insane. And clearly, it's just Trump's ego

wanting to be like, "I finally slayed all these dragons, but man, it's going to create a lot of

instability." Yeah, and the person running the policy in every instance is Marco Rido. And the people doing the negotiations in every instance, which is what we call for, Jared Kushner. And it's like, you know, what we gave Kushner and Wikoff love for basically pressuring these rallies to agree to a ceasefire and getting the hostages out. Like, that was a good thing. That ceasefire, as we've discussed many times, is a joke. But like, let's look at the rest of the Wikoff Kushner record.

“How's it going in Ukraine, right? Remember when we get in that war in 24 hours? It's not been”

well over a year. The negotiations for the run are not only been failures, but like halfway through these really is end up bombing. Like, maybe we should send some pros. Maybe some people who actually

Ricardo Zunigay who's on this podcast last week. Look at all here for yourself. Like, guide been deep, he lived and served in Cuba as a human rights officer for the US. So, I mean,

you don't get a sense that they are, I mean, Marco Rido, he's never been to Cuba. I mean,

“and this is something I think people don't understand. Like, he obviously comes from a Cuban family,”

but he's never been to Cuba, right? I don't think he understands the dynamics as well as he thinks he does. Well, also Trump, like Trump thinks that everyone thinks like him and negotiate. Like him. And again, the dumbest bullshit we've all had to read for the last however many years is that like, you got to think differently, you got to think, check things up, you got to treat like a real estate deal. What are they going to get? What are we going to get? And like, these guys don't understand

the role of like beliefs and ideas. It's something bigger than yourself, right? Because for Trump, it is all transaction. It's all self. It's all about himself. And not for these guys. All right,

then finally, we want to lighten it up a bit with some of the latest news about FBI Director

Cash Patel and his country seeing sensation girlfriend Alexis Wilkins. You guys might remember our

“coverage of Cash Patel's trip to the Olympics where Cash chugged beer with the men's hockey team”

is a universally beloved segment. As predicted, we've since learned that Trump was not happy about Cash's behavior. According to NBC news, Trump told Patel that he did not like the images of him chugging beer in that jersey, looking like a stupid goober, nor did he like Patel using a government plane to fly to Milan, so feel free to fire the guy. And then our massacistic producer, Michael spent an hour watching a Twitter Q&A that Alexis Wilkins did where she, I don't she's like,

that could be fun. I mean, that could actually be fun. Was it fun? No. Yeah, it was not fun. It just talks to herself and takes questions. Is it just, yeah. She was asked about the Olympics trip and what happened here. Alexis, this answer. What do you think Elando's opinion would be on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash during beer with hockey players? So I really am not going to dip too much into this because this is kind of my whole point, but what I will say is

the bureau has long been in charge of providing security for the Olympics. And...

“Yeah. That's what was happening. So I think that we should be probably more concerned with the”

fact that, you know, the Democrats were trying to spend millions of dollars to see if mice can be transgender and the fact that it stopped. It clearly stopped, right? You got it now. I just, I just, this is the dumbest fucking fascism in human history people. Like, I mean, I knew that the American version of fascism was going to be stupid, but between, like, from the spectrum of Melania Trump at the UN Security Council through the

insane management of this war to that person, like saying those words out loud, the FBI does not provide the fucking security at the Olympics. Like, like, cash potentially doesn't. I mean, they may be part of like a whole collective effort. The transgender mice? If Philip Ross... The transgender mice? Could have imagined that who would have written some very different books. Ben, look, we're not done with Alexis, because the New York Times wrote this

big profile of Alexis Wilkins Cash's girlfriend. The story is, it's one of those pieces of reporting that is so funny and just like a really dry way. So, it describes her as... I love it. So, this was a master of the genre. It describes her as, quote, "one of the best protected country singers in the United States, because Cash has put an FBI SWAT team on duty to protect her at all times. Here's a couple more lines from the story. This is all verbatim. Last April,

agents in two SUVs stood guard outside a senior center in Ronald Reagan's boyhood home of Dixon, Illinois, while she sang for a few dozen young conservatives that, like, Bowen. This is a quote from someone that I would say she's an amateur, maybe an aspiring country music artist, said the long-time country music critic, Kyle Coroneos, of savingcountrymusic.com. On the national anthem, I'd probably give her a 7.5 on a 10-scale. He said, "So, she's a C." And this is my favorite part, Ben.

So, Ms. Wilkins, the daughter of a financial specialist in the aerospace industry, her mother, and a global consumer product executive for Gillette, her father, had lived in London in Switzerland and for a time-attended elementary school at College, Dulemol, in Geneva. She's originally from the Boston suburb of Waymouth, but likes to emphasize her time-living in Arkansas. Quote, "They are just

some things, the limousine liberal will never understand from the coast." She'd recently wrote,

you know, the thing about this that drives me nuts is people may not know this about me, tell me. But my father's from Rosenberg, Texas, and is one of, like, 42 first cousins, I think almost all

like, rural parts of Texas. So, I was raised on, like, Willie Nelson, William Jennings,

“right on. Like, outlaw country, Jerry Jeff Walker, you know, like, some fucking legends, all right,”

like, like, some goddamn legends. And people that actually didn't have to be this kind of sanitized, right wing version of country music. So, in addition to her being kind of full of it and being a ridiculous way for us to be spending tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money, I'm offended by this version of country music. That it, it's just this kind of soft, you know, turning point USA, like, propaganda, you know, bullshit propaganda music. Like, like, go listen to some

fucking Willie Nelson and William Jennings and then learn about some country music. I'd rather have, that's have some SWAT teams protecting Willie, because he's still out there doing it. He's still out there on the road. We, uh, we got Willie Nelson, we can get fucking high after this show, Willie Nelson, those edible, but that's the drink, whatever. I don't know. I mean, let's do that,

“right there's that, because that's a way to celebrate this country. Amen. Get in high with Willie”

Nelson, like, like, then rather than listening to this garbage. Yeah, I don't think Willie Nelson was supporting everything, the FBI director. And unless you think we're being too mean to, like, SWAT teams that she's just random civilian, I just want to point out that, uh, beginning a day after Alex predies murder by ice up in Minnesota. She called him a domestic hit terrorist and idiot and a vigilante. So this is a person who's very much operating in the kind of, like, nasty,

magma media space and is what it is. Yeah, it is what it is, unfortunately. Anyway, uh, so that's that, uh, we're going to take a quick break when we come back to your New Year Benz interview with Congresswoman Yasmin and sorry. You're going to talk about Iran, the diaspora, uh, possible war power as votes, what Congress can do to actually stop this insane regime change war of choice so stick around for that.

This episode is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. No matter where you live or how much money you make, you deserve to get the healthcare you need when you need it. One in four people across the country have come to a Planned Parenthood health center for care. But in a politically motivated attempt to block patients from using their Medicaid insurance,

“to get essential care at Planned Parenthood, the Trump administration and its backers and”

Congress passed a lot to defund Planned Parenthood. As many as 200 Planned Parenthood health centers could close, that means cancers will go undetected, STIs will go untreated, and patients won't get the birth control or abortion care they need to plan their families and their features. But Planned Parenthood is not backing down. They're still showing up for patients,

providing essential care and making sure that everyone can get the life-saving,

life-changing services they need. Alongside people like you and me, Planned Parenthood fights every day to build a future we deserve. One wherever one can get the care they need no matter who they are or where they live. Planned Parenthood is an unbelievably important organization that is providing healthcare to countless people in places where they otherwise should would not be able to get it. These politicized tax on Planned Parenthood means

people are going to die. Cancer will go undetected, women will not be able to get the care they need. It is an outrage. So if you can support Planned Parenthood, please do donate now to support Planned Parenthood at PlannedParenthood.org/defent. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to ease 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Pretty was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. That is

not a headline. That is a human life and it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait and of course they're doing all these horrible bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst than they have absolute immunity and they've been told

that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for? On my show runaway country we go where the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of runaway country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. We are very pleased to be joined again by Congresswoman Yasmin and Sari who

represents Arizona's third district. She's also the only Ronnie and American Democrat in Congress.

One of the younger members of Congress, member of the Progress of Caucus, friend of the pod.

reactions personally from various vantage points. But before even getting to that, I'm just curious

“as a member of Congress, how are you being kept informed about this war? How did you learn about it?”

Have you been briefed? Are there upcoming briefings? Do you feel like you're getting information you need? We have not been briefed about this war at all. Today, right after we are chatting today, we will have our very first classified briefing by Secretary Rubio and Hexeth and others. The briefings, you know, these are open to every single member of Congress. They're typically just one hour long.

In my experience, when we've had them before, always after the fact that was the case in the

Venezuela incident as well. They do everything they can to run out the clock. Leave very little time for questions and you'll have a line of members lined up to ask questions. I've tried to ask questions every single time. And typically, you know, there's room for two people and time is up. So it's it's always insufficient. And of course, it's already an issue that it happens days if not a week after an attack takes place. And that's pretty much it. I mean, even, you know, the most senior level

officials in the in Congress, including the gang of eight were informed very last minute. And I know we're unsatisfied with the level of briefing that they got and have publicly studied that there was no imminent threat to the United States as it pertains to Iran. That's pretty extraordinary, actually. I mean, I know you're relatively new there. But do you do any of the Republicans grumble about this privately? I mean, it's just an incredible disregard for the United States

Congress. And hypothetically, the Republicans who control the house could insist on more information.

“Are they just comfortable being completely infantilized like this?”

I don't know. privately, I have heard grumblings not just about this issue, but in general the way the Trump administration operates and in general the way that they don't take Congress seriously. I mean, Trump has openly made comments saying that, you know, Congress is essentially working

for him. And he knows that Mike Johnson is working for him. He always has looked just in the last

couple of weeks. We've had a number of days canceled with no explanation. This is exactly what happened last summer when debates around the Epstein files were taking place. And Mike Johnson shut down Congress a week early before we already had a one-month August recess. It's been happening this week as well. We're only in session for two days. Last week, a day was canceled. And again, no explanation when we're talking about matters of war. So, you know, this continues to be a Congress led.

I will blame Mike Johnson to a massive extent here because he has just completely abdicated his leadership, abdicated the role of Congress. You know, tells his members to act accordingly. And you see very few members speak up publicly about it because they still remain terrified of the retaliation that Donald Trump shows those who do speak up. And we've seen that. Well, we're going to talk about the war now. But what you just described is another reason why the

“midterm elections are so absolutely essential because we essentially have a dictatorial government”

now that is starting wars and not even telling the people's representatives about them. So, now I want to get your reaction. So, you, you have a total unique vantage point on this situation as a member of Congress. You come from a family that had to flee this regime. You, you spoke and have very powerfully about the women life free to movement. And when a homine was killed, the spring leader, you know, you, you were very strong and kind of condemning the evil legacy

that he represented. At the same time, you've taken and knowing you a very principal position that despite those feelings about the regime, you know, the US and Israel bombing it kind of it with no plan is not the right course of action. And so you've been kind of strongly opposed to that course of action. I know there's a lot there. Let's just begin with how have you personally tried to process this as both a, you know, member of Congress and obviously someone who cares

deeply about this situation for lots of reasons. Thank you for the question, you know, for the audience, you know, I'll share my parents fled the regime in the 70s and they were very, very anti-Islamic revolution. This is actually something that is relatively rare at the time

the revolution was very popular. But my family was always against the Islamic Republic before it

he served in elected leadership at the city council level in Iran. He was imprisoned when the revolution took place. I not cousins who have been beheaded by the Islamic Republic. So I say all this information to say that I despise the Islamic Republic, just like the vast majority of Iranians inside and outside of the country for a good reason. They just slaughtered up to potentially tens of thousands of people. And it's true that they are left alone and that there's really,

you know, it's very difficult to overthrow a regime, you know, unarmed and against such a tyrannical group of individuals who quite frankly will do whatever it takes to survive. That being said,

“I think multiple things can be true at one time. I'm a US Congresswoman concerned about the”

Constitution of the United States that Donald Trump has been shredding since he took office last year. Donald Trump did not have the constitutional authority to start a war with Iran without coming to

Congress first and without making a case to the American people. It is wonderful that

"commoning" has been murdered and I understand the very complex feelings. You'll see a lot of Iranians celebrating that as it should be celebrated. And all of these things have happened and now, you know, what I think about a lot and what I've been talking to Iranians both inside and outside of the country about is what is the plan for what comes next? What my concern is is that Donald Trump just as he's demonstrated here in the United States that he does not care about democracy,

that he doesn't have a plan that he moves around from issue to issue that I'm concerned about the future of Iran now. You've taken out the Supreme Leader, schools are being bombed, now there's reporting coming out and a piece soon in the Atlantic that hundreds of millions of dollars are being funneled to Kurdish separatist groups in Iraq, which could then cause a civil war in the country, the MEK, which used to be a cult terrorist group, is part of that. We're hearing

also from Donald Trump about, you know, making deals with somebody else in the regime. I just worry that Donald Trump based on everything he has said and exhibited so far does not have a real plan

“that will lead to actual stability and democracy for the Iranian people, which is honestly what I”

want at the end of the day. I don't want to see American troops harmed. I'm worried about the Americans who are in the Middle East right now. I'm getting outreach from constituents whose family members are stuck in Dubai and the State Department is telling them we have no way to help you or get you out. I mean, this is a catastrophic situation that was clearly done with no plan for either the safety of Americans or the safety of Iranian civilians as well. That's a very

powerful answer and I want to just kind of follow up on this point about the lack of plan and some

of the concerning things we're seeing because, you know, already you've seen Trump give these kind of shifting rationale like this is for freedom and the Iranian people should rise up or I just want to do Venezuela and find someone in the regime essentially. And that's a mixed message, right? If you're

“an Iranian, do you choose to rise up? But then what, do you think this Trump have your back or not?”

And then this reporting, I mean, it's kind of the worst possible strategy, arming ethnic minority groups, whether they be Kurdish and that seems to be where it's starting, there's a blue, a blue separatist, potentially air populations. I mean, that we've look at Syria and Lebanon, right? Look at Iraq. And my question, when you talk to, you mentioned maybe being in touch with people in the country or people who are very happy that the Supreme Leader's gone, are they aware of these

risks and how do they think they can be avoided? Like, do you have a sense of people, particularly inside of Iran, but even some of the people are very active outside, have their own plan about how this is going to end well? Because I honestly truly cannot find it, you know, I don't mean to be so pessimistic, but I just can't see the pathway to something that is not either really violent or really repressive. I think like any population, you know, Iranians aren't a monolith. There's a wide range

of views right now. I think there's the most common thread that I have heard is a mix of hope for

the first time ever. You know, I guess, you know, there's no doubt that getting rid of the upper

echelon of the Islamic Republic is a massive, massive win and considered something to be hopeful

especially as bombs are falling, especially as news comes out about, you know, the arming of

“groups because a big fear that Iranians have and something most Iranians do not want is the separation”

or the end of territorial integrity of the country. People want to keep Iran as Iran as opposed to the country breaking up into different factions. And that's something that's very important to people from all backgrounds, but that's a real risk when you start arming different, you know, groups. And, you know, but again, I will just say there's, and this moment, there's people who are are happy about what Trump did, but my fear is that without a real plan, that will shift,

and I have not seen that real plan. I also just want to speak to, you know, all the different

factions that play. There are, you know, during the protests a couple of weeks ago, you saw people

chanting the name of the former King, the Crown Prince, who does have a lot of support in Iran and outside of Iran, but if you look to Donald Trump's words, every time he's been asked, he does not

“back the Crown Prince. Just today, he said, I don't, I think he seems like a nice guy, but, you know,”

there may be someone inside the country. And so every piece of evidence that you look at and what he said, Donald Trump is looking either at finding someone within the current regime apparatus that he can work with that he can cut a deal with and call it a win, which is not what Iranians want, or arm these different groups, cause chaos, and essentially have state collapse, which will

lead to violence, not just in Iran, but in the region for years to come. Oh, yeah, years and years and

years. I mean, this, if this goes bad, it could go very bad. Yeah, and his words about Reza Palavi kind of like, you know, how he talked about Maria Machado after, you know, taking Yamaduro. This is not someone who's going to expend a lot of effort to try to have a transition to some democratic entity or even monarchical entity led by Reza Palavi and as far as I can see. So I want also just ask you about Congress, and what are the next steps there? So we have these potential war power votes

in the House, you know, we're a convent Thomas Massey, you have this resolution that is essentially

“about forcing about for a congressional authorization. What are the chances of that passing?”

And if not, it seems like it might not. What are the other things that Congress can do to try to get some control over this, try to rain Trump in, try to hold then at least accountable in terms of information. What's kind of the game plan as you see it now? Well, in the conversations I've been a part of with our entire caucus, I'm pleased to see that democratic leadership is taking this vote very seriously. They are, you know, whipping on it and urging all members to vote for

the war powers resolution because it's again, even for those individuals who may support certain courts of the operation. And that's a whole different debate. What this is very clearly is supportive of the constitution and support of raining in the president who has consistently shredded the constitution. A lot of us take this very seriously. And so, you know, I'll just say from my personal experience, even just from the last year, this is one of the talk times I've seen

a lot of alignment and a need a desire from it, folks in our caucus to be united on this, because we know there's already a couple of Republicans who will be joining us and feel strongly about this as well. So, I'm cautiously optimistic. I also think the situation is developing so rapidly. We've had more Americans die. Now, absolute chaos with the state department and an American stuck in the Middle East. I, you know, so I hope that those Democrats who were saying we're

thinking of not voting for it, recognize that now and who knows what will happen in the next 24 hours as well. So, there's that. And then, you know, the, the DHS funding debate is still ongoing and how that relates is Republicans are trying to now make the argument that because of the threats potentially to the homeland that they have caused with this reckless war that they, the Democrats need to get on board and fund DHS. And so, there's a bill now to actually separate ice from everything

else in DHS. And we'll see if any Republicans support that. But there's leverage elsewhere. But, again, I genuinely hope I'm wrong. I really want, when I'm go to the briefing today, I'm going to be asking about, you know, the plan, especially as it pertains to the reports of Army in these groups, because I think that's an absolutely horrific idea. And what the U.S. actually

internationally monitored free and fair elections, actually supporting civil society groups on the ground,

like providing internet access, actually creating the conditions for the Iranian people to, you know, have the future that they want to have, not one that the U.S. or Israel imposed us to on them. One more piece on Congress, do you, what about just getting basic information about, say, the costs of this war? We've heard nothing about the price tag. I know a little bit of something about this. This is not cheap. I mean, these deployments, the munitions that are being spent,

the very expensive missile defense systems being used. Do you feel like there's any capacity to get transparent information about the costs of all this? I absolutely think there is. And we

“have to do that. I think in a world where people are seeing their health care ripped away,”

their food assistance ripped away, housing costs are out of control. There's a reason why only one in four Americans have indicated support for what Donald Trump has done. That is not surprising at all, but it's, you know, it's a blow to the president. So I think we need to take that on more seriously and take on the message of cost, because billions of dollars are going to be spent on a war. And there's no plan to end that war, no off-ramp that we have heard of. And meanwhile,

Americans continue to struggle and be unable to afford anything really. It's really shameful. And I think that it's going to cause real further racism of Americans against Iranians, against people from the Middle East. I mean, we haven't even gotten to talking about those unintended consequences that are bound to happen, especially as we're going into this in a form that's not even popular. I mean, people don't even want to do this. So they're coming, people Americans are

not supporting this. So they're going to feel strongly about the individuals or whatever that they they see as connected to the deaths of Americans. Yeah, boy, I had not really wrapped my mind around that, but we've obviously seen that happen in the past. Well, one more question before you go, I just want to, because I know you have a briefing, but I just want to give you the opportunity to reflect on, you know, your parents flee this country. So you're obviously in this position where,

you know, you have their exile story, and then you're a very American story, obviously. But what do you, when you think about, because I know you were so passionate about the women like Freedom Movement, you know, you're in your 30s, when you think about an Iranian woman in their 30s

who's never known anything, but the Islamic Republic. And it's now dealing with this, you know,

“they're in Tehran, they just, you know, wherever they are. I mean, what, what, what do you want?”

I mean, how do you, how do you kind of put into words like, I just imagine, yes, mean, that this must have just be such a wrenching time for you. You're under all these competing kind of pressures, obviously, but just more fundamentally on a human level, what is kind of your message to that Iranian woman about what we want for her? Yeah, I think about this all the time, you know, the only difference between me and in that woman that you're describing is that I was lucky enough

to have been born in the United States and lucky enough does it? I mean, that's actually all it is, is the difference. And it is catastrophic what Iranian women in particular have had to face. I mean, there have been over a decade now of pro-democracy movements that have been shut down over and over again by this regime. I wrote my college essay about the Green Movement in 2009 and a hopeful, you know, vision for a future democratic Iran, the most recent massacre, you know,

it's estimated that over 20,000 people were murdered and so first I'll say I understand the desperation and the calls for help. I do think that other countries should help Iranians. I absolutely

“think that. I mean, I think there needs to be on the multilateral coalition that has a real plan”

to help Iranian people with self-determination and getting the future that they deserve because

it's a country of 90 million people smart, educated, you know, talented individuals who could

bring so much prosperity to the rest of the world and so much, you know, just so many positive things that it would be a huge huge win for international security overall. So I, you know, I think

with us, I think that our government, what we actually should be doing is supporting internet access,

“making sure that you can get on the internet and communicate to us, making sure that your civil”

society groups and human rights groups are supported. Right now, there's also thousands of people in EVEN prison, which is like the most notorious prison in Iran, some of the best and brightest minds. Those are the people that we need to get out to help create the future of Iran. I don't think it should be imposed from the outside. But I will do, you know, anything I can look despite being opposed to this administration and its lawlessness and its anti-democratic views here in the

US, if I can be productive and do anything to support a plan to actually have a positive future for Iran, I will work with anyone to do that. And I, and committed to that. So that's my message.

Yeah, well, it's very powerful and, and it's a reminder that we need to listen to those Iranians,

you know, I mean, we didn't listen Afghans, we didn't listen to Iraqis, you know, we didn't listen to Libyan's in the country actually. I mean, we mainly talk in diaspora, Libyans, and not saying there's not a role for the diaspora, but I mean, the people in the country know about what might help, and we have to find ways to get their voices to us so that we're informed by them.

“We'll look, I know you have to run, but thanks so much for joining us today, and we'll keep in touch.”

Thanks so much. Thanks to the Congresswoman, I'm sorry for joining the show, and God knows when we'll talk to you guys next. Yeah. Thanks to Michael for listening to the hour of these lists, Lexus, you know, Patel. I love it. Whatever. What happens to Liz trust? She was in the light. We couldn't book her. We couldn't book her. We tried to book her. No, you guys didn't seem

excited as excited as we were. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I guess word of lame. Yeah, we are Liz trust. I'm not being on the show this week. I got it. Okay. Good to know. Got it. Well, talk to you. We'll see you probably before next week. Yeah, but unfortunately, we'll see you next week. Pots of world is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Aloneman Koski. Our producer is

Michael Goldsmith. Our associate producer is Anisha Bonnergy. We get production support from Saul Rubin, our executive producers, our meat Tommy Vitor, and Ben Rhodes. The show is engineered, mixed and edited by Jordan Canter, audio support by Kyle Segland and Charlotte Landis. Thank you to our digital team, Ben Hefkoat, Mia Kalman, William Jones, David Tolls, and Ryan Young. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Eater and Hills are senior vice president of Doos in politics.

“If you want to listen to Pots of the world, add free and get access to exclusive podcast,”

go to crooked.com/friends to subscribe on supercast, sub-stack, YouTube, or Apple podcast. Don't forget to follow us at crooked media on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events. Please subscribe to Pots of the world on YouTube for access to full episode, bonus content, and much more. If you're opinion it like us, leave a review. A production staff is proudly unionized by the writer's guild of America East.

If you guys like Pots of America, please consider subscribing to our friends of the pod program. So friends of the pod get lots of stuff. Get more Pots of America that includes our new show, which is called Pots of America only friends. We're Dan gets full frontal nudity,

but mostly it's a bi-weekly subscription-exclusive podcast that is basically Pots of America,

but behind a pay wall. So it's a little bit looser and more fun, and it's love it, and fabrow, and me and Fife are in another crooked house. We're going to deeper on the news and cover more stories. We also get open taps, which is a weekly behind-the-scenes newsletter, from the show, plus you get ad free episodes of your favorite crooked podcast, and all kinds of other stuff. Dan will come to your house and clean it once every morning. Dan is very busy, close, only.

But along with just getting great content, becoming a friend of the pod, joining our subscription community, is the number one thing you can do to help us grow, to help independent progressive media. So if you're ever thought about doing it, if you ever wanted more Pots of America, consider going to crooked.com/friends and becoming a friend of the pod.