Tomahawks, Blockades, And A War That Won’t End

Missiles, markets, and political panic all collide as we try to make sense of a rapidly escalating U.S. Iran war. We walk through the latest battlefield signals, including U.S. Tomahawk strikes, the reluctance to risk sustained flyovers, and why the Strait of Hormuz has become the defining chokepoint for global oil prices and commercial shipping. When Iran declares the strait closed and Washington insists it “controls” it, the real question becomes simple: who can impose costs that change the other side’s behavior?

We’re joined by Professor Robert Pape, who argues Iran has shifted from survival to ambition, using escalation pressure and a broader regional “security belt” strategy that could stretch the crisis through the summer and into major political milestones. Then Professor Mohammed Morandi gives a Tehran-centered view of Trump’s threats, the logic of insisting on written commitments, and why direct talks are seen as a trap when past U.S. promises fall apart. Along the way, we unpack the most unnerving reports swirling around escalation, plus what it means when rhetoric starts drifting toward seizing oil infrastructure.

From there, we bring it home: Trump’s comments on inflation, the reality of gas prices erasing wage gains, and a SpaceX IPO that highlights how extreme wealth concentration is reshaping politics and everyday life. We close with the DOJ “anti-weaponization” fund backlash and new details on the White House freakout over the Epstein files, exposing how loyalty, transparency, and credibility are breaking down across the administration.

If you want clear, skeptical analysis of the Iran conflict, the Strait of Hormuz, inflation, and the Epstein files drama, subscribe to the show, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review with the biggest question you still have after listening.

Transcript

SPEAKER_12 0:03

Good morning, everybody.

SPEAKER_06 0:04

Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

SPEAKER_12 0:06

Indeed, we do. A lot of breaking news once again with regard to our war on Iran. Bombs are flying. There are some indications. Maybe they're still working on a deal behind the scenes. We will sort through it all. Trump making some wild comments and threats as well. So we'll play that for you too. Professor Mirandi is going to join us for the Iranian perspective, what he thinks is going on and may happen next. Brandon Weikert is also going to be back with us. So we covered with him previously the efforts to integrate the Israeli military with our military. Apparently, they're also trying to fully integrate the Israeli uh intelligence apparatus with our intelligence apparatus and to legislate that this is legally mandated, no matter what a future president may want to do. So he's

Breaking News And What’s Ahead

SPEAKER_12 0:49

going to get into all of that and also react to a very troubling report from legendary journalist Zy Hirsch that Trump has, in fact, floated a using a nuke in Iran. So get his thoughts on all of that. We've also got some other wild Trump comments on the economy. He says he loves the inflation. We will get you the Republican reaction. We also have a huge story in terms of the stock market with the SpaceX IPO going forward. This is going to be, one way or another, extremely consequential. So we want to take another look at that. And then we've got uh Mika Brzezinski with a wild question to Graham Plattner and an excerpt in the New York Times of uh explosive behind the scenes information about how all of the Epstein Files machinations went down behind the scenes. This is Maggie Haberman. Um, and uh it's pretty interesting what they are claiming happened with regards to, you know, remember the binders that went to the influencers, Pam Bondi making a mess of things, who was arguing for what behind the scenes and what the president was up to during that time.

SPEAKER_06 1:51

Yeah, this uh I don't I would say it doesn't make a single person in there look good. Thank you to everybody for subscribing to the show, breakingpoints.com, to support our work. All of us up uh all hours of the night monitoring all these missiles flying all over. So please support us if you can. And if you're watching this on YouTube, hit subscribe, listen to the podcast, share an episode with a friend. But as Chris just said, we're gonna go ahead and start with all of the craziness in the Middle East right now. Let's go ahead and start. First, what we have here is the United States Navy releasing this, disabling another tanker in the Gulf of Oman. You can see that they shot two hellfire missiles at the boiler room. This is the third tanker that's been disabled in a number of days. What you're watching here is actually an Iranian missile barrage on a Air Force base in Jordan. Very noteworthy because Jordan had not come under nearly as much attack. You can see that some of the missiles were intercepted. Iranians are claiming otherwise. This is a very important one. What you're watching in front of you are actually Tomahawk missiles, which were fired from a U.S. destroyer somewhere in the Persian Gulf. But the reason why this is very important from a military perspective is that it shows even nearly 100 days now into the war is that the United States did not want

Tomahawks Over Flyovers And Why

SPEAKER_06 3:01

to risk actually sending planes over Iran. And remember, because we had multiple shootdown instances. So these are standoff munitions, tomahawks. It is estimated that in the 39 days, maybe 38 days of conflict, the United States spent 30% of its entire tomahawk missile inventory. So another 50 Tomahawk missiles per the president in the White House that were fired as of last night. Very noteworthy in the fact that they were used. We also know from the targeting, many of the targets in Iran appear to all be air base and radar systems, which are along the Strait of Hormuz. Why does that matter? Because it shows remaining that the U.S. remains bedeviled by this problem. We are told that the Navy was eliminated, that the Air Force was eliminated. Not even true. Just saw a video literally came out today released by the Iranians of one of their fighter jets actually landing on an airbase. But it does show that they are still bedeviled by that problem. Many of these installation sites all along the Strait of Hormuz. And the most single most important use is those Tomahawk missiles. It tells us they still do not want to risk sending planes over Iran in the case that they get shot down, just showing their overall military strength. So we did have uh Fox News reporter Trey Hinks. He got the call straight from the situation room last night. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_17 4:15

I just spoke with President Trump, who is currently in the Situation Room with Vice President J.D. Vance, along with special envoys Kushner and Whitkoff. The president giving new insight into what is taking place as we speak. There is an ongoing bombing campaign against the Iranian regime. The president tells Fox News that 49 Tomahawk missiles were used to hit targets inside of Iran, some of them as close as 40 miles from the Iranian capital of Tehran. The president said that U.S. fighter jets are also operating over the skies of Iran, taking out radar systems and air defense systems in the southwestern part of the country, close to the Persian Gulf. This is all taking place as the Iranians are trying to get the United States to stop the bombing campaign. President Trump told me that Iran called him tonight. Top Iranian officials, and President Trump spoke directly, according to the commander-in-chief, tonight, as the president was sitting in the situation room, and he told me that the Iranians asked them to stop bombing. And the president said to me, the bombing will stop shortly. I asked him what will happen if the Iranians do not sign an agreement that was put forward by American negotiators. President Trump said, quote, we'll bomb the ass out of them tomorrow night. I asked the president if the ceasefire is over. He told me this was the most violated ceasefire in the history of the world. He also spoke about the broader situation. And Vice President J.D. Vance also spoke momentarily. The phone at one point was on speaker, and the vice president talked about how this negotiating team has dealt with the Iranians, understanding that they have to deal with both moderates and more extreme voices inside of Iran.

SPEAKER_06 5:58

We will bomb the shit out of them, Trump told uh Trey. I like his attempt uh to censor there on cable television. We were going to bomb the shit out of them today if they do not sign a deal. I'm sure that if we just bomb them for the 39th time, that this time everything will work out. Let's put an A3 up here on the screen. The immediate response from the Iranians, Iran has declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to all shipping and has warned any vessel will be targeted. The Armed Forces Top Operational Command responsible for coordinating military operations says the following: Following the criminal aggressions of the American enemy and considering the launch of new attacks by the Invading Army, that the countries on the area of the South Province from this moment ago, due to insecurity in the region, the Strait of Hormuz is declared

Iran Declares Hormuz Closed

SPEAKER_06 6:41

closed for passage for all types of vessels, including oil tankers and commercial ships. Any movement of vessels through the strait will be targeted. And the American claim regarding the pacifist ship through the strait is false. This was after CENTCOM had denied that.

SPEAKER_12 6:57

Trump said in that, you know, to Trey Yanks reportedly that he had spoken directly with the Iranians. They are also denying that that is going on. And I mean, the one area where they are in agreement is Trump said this is the most violated ceasefire in the history of time. And they also are saying that, you know, this these attacks have made the truce completely meaningless. So today seems to be a really pivotal day, given that Trump is saying either we're going to have some sort of a deal, you know, we're going to bomb them into negotiating, which is something that he's been convinced of before that, oh, if we just have a little more violence, one more attack, then we're going to be able to succeed at the negotiating table. Um so either there's going to be some sort of progress diplomatically today, or else it's looking increasingly like we're going back to all our war.

SPEAKER_06 7:42

I I think that there's no question in terms of I mean, look, I don't know, obviously anything could happen. There's some reports about talking and all of that behind the scenes, but a couple of important things, we'll save that mostly for Professor Mirandi. But if we s if we stick explicitly with what we know, let's put A5 up here on the screen again, just to show everyone where all of these things are going. At least four explosions were heard on the coastal town on the eastern side of the strait. Another explosion was uh near the city of Minab, which, if you'll recall, that's where that girl school was struck. Several explosions were also near heard near the port area on a Gulf of Oman coast, and then an explosion was reported in Iran's main commercial port and naval hub overlooking the Strait of Hormuz. All of that indicates that the U.S. is looking at the strait singularly as the major military problem. What this comes on the heels of, if you put it all together, is that the strait itself, reopening it, is the only military objective now of the U.S. They're not even pretending to strike military strikes or military sites in Tehran or near the nuclear facilities or any of these places, which actually shows you the ball is in Iran's court because if they're able to control the strait now, as opposed to whenever February 28th, when the war is launched, we are now trying to solve a problem that didn't exist on the very day the war was launched. It also, look, if Iran was totally military-defeated, as Trump has claimed, I think yesterday, uh, that Ryan and Emily covered, then they would not have air defense and radar systems and missiles and drones that they were able to launch as far away as Jordan, at Kuwait, at Bahrain, all three, which were also hit last night. I mean, look, we have no idea. There's all kinds of wild claims that are out there. But one thing making clear to me, there is a hell of a lot more censorship now coming out of the Gulf. The number of videos and things that come from the Gulf of showing interceptions and all that is minuscule compared to even when it was over, you know, I pretty clearly the Gulf people have got this lockdown over the last 65 days. And I think a lot of foreigners have probably left. Probably. So that's probably another part of it. But I mean, we are seeing, you know, there's some report of a hit on the U.S. Navy, Fifth Fleet. Don't know if it's true or not. We'll never know, to be honest, because it's not like CENCCOM gonna tell us the truth. I love, I mean, just to show you all the level of nonsense. Jordan came out and was like, we've intercepted 20 missiles. Well, Iran was like, well, we only fired 12. So how does that work out? You know, what well, maybe the missiles came from somewhere else. Somebody else can uh uh speculate that, or maybe they're lying. And and we've seen that very consistently from CENTCOM from the US forces. They keep saying everything is fine, nothing's been hit, and then six weeks later you're like, oh my god, this entire place looks like the moonscape in terms of what has been hit. So just keep that in mind as some of these denials and other things are rolling out. We have no idea the amount of U.S. assets uh that may have been taken out as of yesterday. We do know though that uh there was this major strike on an Iranian water stores, a drinking water site. We basically 100% confirmed. It's been geolocated and confirmed also. The New York Times ran one of its investigative uh series on it over the last 24 hours. They said not only was it struck, but it was struck deliberately. Pete Heggseth was asked about that yesterday when he was at Gitmo. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_05 10:53

So if our blockade is ironclad, which it is, and we're able to move commercial shipping in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. Who controls the Strait of Hormuz? And President Trump said it, and he's right. The United States of America controls the Strait of Hormuz. We're able to bring oil in and out and other things with partners, and have done so now for weeks and weeks in ways the Iranians don't want to acknowledge. We're not, we we're, as you know, we're not

Water Infrastructure Strikes And Red Lines

SPEAKER_05 11:21

in the business of revealing what we're gonna do or not gonna do, but uh ultimately what we do tonight are gonna advance our military interests and also enhance our diplomatic position. Or you just mentioned you're gonna plan to hit them and strike them hard tonight. If the response is in hitting bridges, electrical infrastructure, how would that not be a war climb potentially targeting civilian infrastructure? But precisely the kind of disingenuous question that I'm used to from the media. Uh impugning the motives of the folks on our side uh who are incredibly professional and incredibly effective. We will hit them hard on our terms, on the targets that improve the environment for us to operate in and undermine the capabilities that Iran wants to have. Again, they can't do that to us meaningfully the way that we can to them, but we're also clearly signaling to them. You have a choice. You have a choice to in the way that you respond, and you have a choice with the negotiate, our incredible negotiating team uh in Steve Witkoff and Jerry Kushner and the vice president and the president across the board prepared. Marco Rubio, the whole team prepared to make a great deal that would benefit Iraq. They choose not to, and as a result, they are uh they're gonna meet the United States Central Command again, again tonight, in the way the president laid out clue.

SPEAKER_06 12:42

Hank Santh is fully back to uh rah-rah mode. Uh but uh you can see here is asked specifically, oh, we control the Strait of Hormuz, but the strike on the water storage site remains very important because that was one of the main well, first of all, you know, you're not supposed to do that, it's just by any even by the uh rules laid out by the United States military, not even like Geneva Convention or any of that. But second, uh, is that that was always something that was going to be seen as a red line from the Iranians. Now, we don't know yet what their full response has been. Frankly, it's been a bit muted now so far. They've only really targeted American sites. Uh, they have not, as of yet, targeted any of the civilian infrastructure in the Gulf, but that has always been threatened. Recall, they were very much eye for an eye. Like you hit the South Pars gas field, they're going to go ahead and hit Raslafan in Doha, taking out billions and billions of dollars in oil infrastructure. I'm not sure what their military strategy is right now, but it does remain one where they can use it certainly as a pretext to go after all those desalination plants all across the Gulf, which will be equally critical for them as it is for Iran. So remains to be seen.

SPEAKER_12 13:45

Let's go ahead and put A8 up on the screen. This is what we've referenced a few times about how there is this report. Um, according to a veteran political insider, and this is from Omwaj Media in Tehran with knowledge of the negotiations, alleging that there is a draft agreement that has been prepared. Um, that insider said that the text is ready. It was finalized tonight, gave credit to Qatar, which has been separately engaging with both Iran and the US to forge a deal. Now keep in mind, when we say a deal, we mean a preliminary memo of understanding to, I guess, have a more concrete ceasefire, since the ceasefire doesn't really seem to be a ceasefire, while the rest of the details are worked down. Says if they can get the final approval by tomorrow, that would now be today, it will be initiated.

Draft Deal Rumors And Doubts

SPEAKER_12 14:33

Spike in Iran U.S. violence comes amid mixed signaling that suggests possible disconnect between what the respective militaries are doing and what political leadership are discussing. Senior Iranian political source interpreted Trump's decision to conduct strikes for a second night as reflecting anger with an apparent deadlock in negotiations. While describing Trump as angry, the senior source lamented there appeared to be little cognizance in the White House of how real-world armed confrontations are, quote, not a video game. Uh, the Iranian leadership has authorized retaliatory strikes on U.S. military facilities, casting doubt on the prospect of a nod to an imminent deal. There are indications, though, that both sides ultimately want to avoid renewed all-out war. While the Iranian leadership has authorized retaliatory strikes, um, they also say last late on June 10th, Trump claimed to have ordered a halt to bombings after speaking directly with Iranian officials, alleging he was asked to cease attacks the US military on June 10th, struck a number of military sites in southern Iran. Iranian media has denied the claims about any direct contact. Trump notably alluded to the coming 24 hours, that would be today, as being decisive, saying that if an agreement on the table is not signed on June 11th, we'll bomb the shit out of them. So the idea that's being offered here is that the strikes are more about two things frustration with the final holdup in the negotiations, and also trying to posture, like, you know, now if he did this bombing and then announced a deal, then he would get to look kind of like a tough guy, like, oh, you know, they we came in and we were hard with them and we struck their, you know, critical sites and they were afraid. And that's why we're able to secure this deal. So what this, the picture that this insider report is laying out is one of more posturing and face-saving in the, you know, days before there's actually going to be some sort of diplomatic breakthrough. That's what they're claiming. Now, I am skeptical because I don't think that when you go in and bomb a country, it makes it more likely for a deal to happen. That is certainly not what we've seen in the past. It's not what we've seen in the context of this conflict when Iran still has a very hard and you know, a strong position in terms of their leverage over the straight of four moves. The nature, as Sagar was saying before, of the attacks, where there were not flyovers, where these were just missiles launched from far away, shows the strict continued strength of the Iranian military and the Iranian position. We have been, you know, to the very almost have a deal rodeo for like 60 days at this point. So that also lends some level of skepticism. But we wanted to make sure to get in here that this is, you know, this is a possibility that that is what is going on behind the scenes, and that neither side really wants to go back to all-out conflict and will, you know, take some pain and some loss in order to secure some sort of a deal. The other element of this that we haven't mentioned is Israel, which continues to strike inside of Lebanon. And that is a red line for the Iranians, and they have already made clear and asserted that that is, you know, that that is a deal breaker. They will not move forward until there is a genuine cessation of hostilities from Israel against Lebanon and Hezbollah. So, um, so in any case, it appears to be, you know, we're either coming to some sort of at least temporary deal and memo of understanding, or spiraling back into allowed hostilities.

SPEAKER_06 17:56

Well, uh, while you were speaking, okay. Some breaking news. The United States from Donald Trump, let's put this up in post, will be hitting Iran, whose Navy, Air Force, radar, and anti-aircraft are gone very hard tonight. At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Karg Island and other oil infrastructure points and assume total control of their oil and gas markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Okay.

SPEAKER_12 18:28

Well, what do you think of that? I mean, do you think that that's a uh that that's an empty threat and again and posturing, or do you think this is really happening? Right. Because with Trump, you never know because you cannot take his words at face value.

SPEAKER_06 18:42

Processing in real time, it's just basically two options. Is the one,

Trump Floats Seizing Oil Assets

SPEAKER_06 18:45

remember, he said we're gonna end civilization, entire civilization will die tonight. The ceasefire gets signed like 24 hours later. So that's certainly possible. Also, would you really want to telegraph that you're going to take a Karg Island before you're going to take Karg Island? Probably not, because if you're like, hey, that's where we're going. So maybe they're not going to take Karg Island. We previously talked about Kashm Island, which they might go ahead and try to take, or it might be used as cover for a nuclear, you know, uh paratrooper uh deployment in the nuclear area with Isfahan. So let's put that all on the table. At the very least, though, I mean, we're back to bellicity and to sore, you know, sword waving, which the Iranian look, I mean, that's why while you were talking, I was like, my only counter was gonna be this would mean a totally different Iran. An Iran that would sit there from Iran for the last hundred days, which has consistently laid out a red line and said, if you come and hit us, we're gonna hit you twice as hard to establish deterrence that has fit their entire pattern. There's no reason to say why they would capitulate right now to this action. I also just say have no, I just see no, you know, reason why you would say at some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Carg Island and other oil infrastructure points and assume total control of their oil and gas markets if you didn't mean it in some form.

SPEAKER_12 20:00

It does remind me though very much of like you were saying, the whole civilization is gonna die. And then he said we're gonna destroy all of their bridges and all of their infrastructure. And that was that was an attempt by him to provide himself with cover in order to, you know, float this uh this deal, which was, you know, so that he could look like, oh, we forced that. They were so scared that they came running to the negotiating team. We got everything that we wanted.

SPEAKER_06 20:27

No, but he's an idiot, right? You know, it's like it's one of the look. I here's the thing where we could assume strategy when in reality he's losing it. Like I think that's what it is. Do you remember the Project Freedom? Do we have any of that stuff in here? Sorry, just because we have a few more minutes before Mirandi. Yeah, okay, let's put B2, bring it in. Yesterday, Trump said last month, I directed our great military to execute the secret mission to support 100 million barrels of making its way to the strait. Now, first of all, 100 million barrels roughly works out to 2.5 million barrels per day. Does anyone want to tell me how many barrels would move to the Strait of Hormuz on a normal day? 20 million. Okay, so 10%, roughly 10% of normal traffic. And as I put out in my analysis, I was like, so we're really bragging about the full force of the United States Navy, billions of dollars, millions, tens of millions of dollars per day, billions of dollars per month, Apache helicopters, MQ9 Reaper drones, three dead Indian nationals, and all I got was a lousy 10% of restoring to the straight. What does that tell you about the full force of the United States Navies? But let's put that to the side. Why would you brag about a secret mission? If it's a secret mission that was working, why would you brag about it? Because you care more about the oil markets necessarily than you do about actually the mission. Because now, if they're like, hey, if this is happening, they're gonna put more attempts to try it and to stop it. Well, I mean, there's no logic behind it any kind of like why would you brag about that if it was real? Well, is it all bluster? I don't know. I mean, at the same time, it would be shocking and insane to brag about taking Carg Island. And we will say, let's put let's put some of the pieces together. Remember Ken Klippenstein's report? Paratroopers who are currently in the Middle East. There's not in Israel, but there's a very uh under notice uh picture that was put out by CENTCOM two days ago. It was like paratroopers train live fire exercise in the Middle East. And I was like, oh, that's subtle. All right. So you have live fire training bragging by CENTCOM. I mean, it's possible.

SPEAKER_12 22:19

I think I think anything is possible because he is desperate. And this is let's put A7 up on the screen. This is from Cy Hirsch, um, you know, legendary journalist. Um, he is claiming that he has a source inside of the Trump administration that uh, you know, that Trump at some point floated the idea of using low-yield nuclear weapons to destroy, quote, some of Iran's underground missile factories. He was told by someone with extensive knowledge of nuclear weaponry that it was a very scary and very serious moment. The president was depicted at this point to be desperate not to lose in Iran. His idea was to warn the Iranian leadership that we are very seriously considering such an escalation. I was told the president apparently was talked out of any thought of nuclear escalation. So this is one report based on one insider to Seymour Hirsch. However,

Nuclear Rumors And Escalation Fear

SPEAKER_12 23:10

it fits with the picture of Trump being beside himself, you know, incredibly erratic. Every week we go back to let's leak something to Barack Ravid, let's try to control the markets, let's, you know, do a little bit of bombing, let's tell Israel not to bomb, and let's green light Israel bombing. I mean, it just is the if you look at the entire picture, it is one of someone who is trapped, who doesn't know what to do, who is lashing out at times, who is trying everything they can possibly think of to get themselves out of a mess of their own creation, which is a disaster. I mean, if if you accept the Iranian position and the deal that's on the table, you are acknowledging a humiliating defeat for yourself. If you go into full-scale war with some sort of insane carg island operation or nuclear dust operation or God forbid, you know, low-yield nuclear weapon, that is going to be a disaster as well. So there are no good options on the table. And he keeps spinning his wheels trying to find one. You know, the reason I put some credence in the idea that this is a lot of bluster is simply because I do think he is terrified of going, you know, of doing some larger scale assault that would involve a ground invasion. I think he is terrified of that. You know, I think there's been after that, whatever happened with the pilot rescue situation and how that went so sideways and was almost a complete and total disaster. He seems to have been from that point on very fearful of walking that next step up the escalation ladder, but also cannot accept the deal that would be on the table right now.

SPEAKER_06 24:49

That's why there's no reason to say that.

SPEAKER_12 24:51

I think today is really pivotal. Today is really pivotal.

SPEAKER_06 24:53

I think that's why there's no reason to dismiss that we have oscillated back as we did past 60 days. Remember, by the way, it is by the grace of God those pilots are alive. I was, you know, again, assume the actual story is true. But I mean, there's no reason not to, uh, at least so far, with the Apaches, which is that the Apache helicopter is flying, a drone, a suicide attack drone comes somehow. By the way, the Apache, as I understand it, the pilot configuration is like one-one, like here. I was reading from a pilot. It lodges itself in between, it's on fire. So they have to do a power descent into the water. And then once they're in the water, they're picked up by this AI U.S. Navy service drone. So, first of all, from what I heard, if it's a pilot, impossible. Like out of a plane. Why? Because they're immobilized into their seats and they wouldn't have been able to get out as easy and wouldn't be able to swim to the drone. So that's number one. So they're like every step went right for these people to be alive, whoever these pilots are. But I mean, if we consider that operation, Trump previously had said that the red line was if Americans were killed. I mean, these guys are bare barely, I know, seriously. Again, again, if the official story is true, which I currently do think so, uh, because the Iranians did kind of acknowledge that they hit the pilot and all that. I don't really know why they would lie. Um anyway, my my point just remains because we have Mirandi standing by. Uh, this is a very, very, very pivotal moment. Let's let's talk to Professor Mirandi. He's standing by. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people.

SPEAKER_12 26:21

And if you'd like to get the full show, ad-free, and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up at breakingpoints.com.

SPEAKER_06 26:27

That's right. Get the full show, help support the future of independent media at breakingpoints.com. Very excited now to be joined by our great friend of the show, Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago. It's good to see you, sir. Thanks for coming back. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. Let's go ahead and start uh with B1. This really uh caught our interest, Professor. Curious for your reaction. The commander of the IRGC could's force issued a very interesting statement yesterday. He said that they would establish a new security belt of resistance that from the Strait of Hormuz to the Baba Mendeb Strait off of Yemen, and then to the Gulf of to the Red Sea, according to these new comments by state media. They are now using the term resistance or axis of resistance to refer to Iranian allies in the region from Hezbollah to Yemen's Houthis. What do you make of this new term of the axis of resistance, this security belt comment

Pape On Iran’s Shift To Ambition

SPEAKER_06 27:20

in the context of everything that's been happening here in this war?

SPEAKER_14 27:23

Uh, this is more evidence for the new stage of the war that we've entered into. We just passed day 100 of the Iran War. There is no end in sight. We are not at the end. We are in the middle game. And in the middle game, the most distinctive feature, which has happened for weeks, and this what you just showed is strong evidence of it, is that Iran has moved from survival to ambition. Let me say that again. Iran is no longer just considering how it survives. Iran is moving from survival to ambition. You see that in its behavior. You see that uh a week ago, it responds to relatively minor strikes here by the U.S. by upping the ante to put pressure on Kuwait and Bahrain. Uh, they are not just doing tit for tat, they are using a version of their own escalation dominance to put pressure on those Gulf states to withdraw American forces from their territory. Almost at the same time, they threaten Israel. You attack Hezbollah's strongholds in Beirut, that's Iran's key ally, and Iran is going to punish, going to retaliate. This is uh part of that new red line that you just showed. They are extending an umbrella. They are not just worrying about survival and Tehran. They're extending an umbrella, a new architecture. That is a new ambition. And then last week, right at the end of last week, the senior advisor to the Supreme Leader made a statement almost identical to what you just showed, except did not define the umbrella area so clearly. Use the same uh geographic space, by the way, but not that clear set of red lines. So, what you are seeing is that Iran is gaining, has gained power in the opening stage. That's like the opening in chess. It has gained power. And in the middle game, it's not just happy going for a draw. It's going to extend that power in a more ambitious way. And that middle game with this new security architecture, and I'm glad to say a bit more about that, but this this middle game, this is going to go on, folks, through the summer. We are almost surely now going to have the new crisis in the world economy based on Iran's behavior and rhetoric. This is this is almost locked in. The world may not fully uh expect it, but this is what you would expect. This is this is what the the direction of the modeling for the 20 years would would expect. And then I'm sorry to also say this is not just gonna end on Labor Day. Donald Trump extended the naval blockade to Labor Day as if this is gonna be over by Labor Day, which of course is very convenient for him with the midterms. However, that's not where Iran's thinking is. If Iran can hurt its opponents through the midterms, as the United States and also Israel Netanyahu has elections coming, it's gonna take advantage of that. So we need to expect that this middle game is gonna go on through the summer, through the UN, the new economic crisis, into the fall and midterms, and probably into January. That's the true middle game we are facing.

SPEAKER_12 31:13

Wow. So if that's where Iran is, they've moved from survival to ambition. What is Trump's perspective? What are his thoughts? Because we've been tracking on the show how you had the situation where uh Israel was struck by Iran. Trump tells a bunch of reporters, I don't want Israel to retaliate, then Israel retaliates anyway. Um, he's now saying, oh, well, I understand that they had to do that limited strike, but now they're done. But of course, this morning we see headlines that they continue to strike inside of Lebanon. So, in any case, what do you think is going on in terms of Trump's calculus and how all of that unfolded?

SPEAKER_14 31:52

Yeah, so what Trump is uh doing, uh, first let's just explain. As Iran has gained power, America has lost strategic position. These are a direct trade-off of each other. Trump's rhetoric and phone calls and statements um are as if he was still the dominant power. He is acting as if he is still in control. In fact, he has been saying, I am in control. Well, the fact is, Trump is losing control as his strategic position has declined. And control is not defined by what the actor President Trump says, I have control. It's defined by how others are reacting. So, point number one, um, the Iranians have said, and this is what the uh advisor to the Supreme Leader said late last week, that they're just gonna ignore what Trump says about negotiations. It's not they're gonna respond to it tit for tat. They're just ignoring him. They don't think it has any reality, and they've laid out their their demands in public, uh, which means they're digging their heels in and they don't really care what President Trump says anymore. At least that's what that's what they've said, and their behavior would reflect that. Israel also. Uh they're still taking Netanyahu is still taking President Trump's calls. Okay, so I'm not saying that they've gone that far in not taking the call. They're taking the call, but Netanyahu did not follow Trump's uh orders. Trump tried to order Netanyahu not to retaliate. And what happened? Netanyahu launched airstrikes on Iran, in Western and Central Iran, against some key targets. So this is the opposite of listening to President Trump. President Trump is losing control because his behavior and rhetoric has been as if he uh had not lost that strategic position. Right. Well, in war, the realities dictate everything. You can try to have your happy talk, and that's what President Trump is doing. Uh, but this is being ignored because the happy talk is irrelevant. We all see the realities, and that's true in much of the American public. That's true in uh the leadership, and that is what why President Trump's words seem to have no reality to them. It's because there is no reality to his words. And we we we know this. How long has it been? Let me just ask you. How and the listeners should ask, how long has it been that they have heard President Trump say that their negotiations with Iran are just about to be settled? Well, I went back before we came on. I just thought I would just check for myself, and this could be a you know a game that listeners could do on Google. I found it goes back to March 29th. Okay, so that's 72 days of this. Now, if your listeners can it's like beat the professor, maybe I missed one before March 29th. So just let me know if they found one going back earlier than March 29th. Yeah, but that's 72 days of almost every day or every other day hearing. We're only days away from the deal with Iran. So you could see as Iran's ambitions grow, as it extends its umbrella, it's spreading its wings, why he would be losing control.

SPEAKER_06 35:23

Professor, you had a uh a prediction here, or just a statement on our show many months ago. You said Iran has become a new regional world power. I I put that clip out, it got quite a lot of criticism mostly from the Israeli lobby. Uh, and what I found fascinating, actually, is watching some of this proof out. And so yesterday, when we saw Iran enforce its red line of strikes on Lebanon, for the first time in its modern history, to actually use that as a pretext explicitly to enforce regional action. How did that prove out, that original statement?

SPEAKER_12 35:58

For the Iranian perspective on whatever is happening this morning, we are very fortunate to be joined by Professor Mohammed Morandi of the University of Tehran. Great to see you again, sir.

SPEAKER_03 36:07

Good to see you, sir. Great to see the two of you.

SPEAKER_12 36:10

So let me get your live reaction here to the latest Trump Truth social post. He says the United States will be hitting Iran, whose Navy Air Force radar anti-aircraft and all other forms of defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are gone very hard tonight. At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Carg Island and other oil infrastructure points and assume total control of their oil and gas markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working now brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America.

Morandi On Tehran’s View Of Trump

SPEAKER_12 36:44

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Uh, I know you're processing this in real time, but what is your initial reaction here, sir?

SPEAKER_03 36:54

It doesn't surprise me. I mean, that's the sort of thing that Trump does say. And we've seen him carry it out in Venezuela and threatening to take Cuba, and he is currently strangling Cuba, and he's facilitating the genocide and the ongoing genocide in southern Lebanon, and of course the ongoing genocide in Gaza. So we have no expectations. But it's interesting that um that uh doesn't recognize that there is an Iranian audience out there, and they see that uh uh the Trump regime is not prepared uh to uh to be reasonable, and that it is openly saying that it's going to take Iranian resources and Iranian territory. So that is going to do nothing but uh unite the country further. If there are those who are uh saying that uh maybe we should find a solution, even though it may not be completely uh fair, and maybe may even if the agreement may not be fully uh uh just, but maybe we should uh uh carry uh accept an agreement with the Americans uh in the hope that Trump will back down and behave more reasonably. When they see this, they say, okay, then the uh uh political forces uh in power in Iran, they're right. They are they have to be tough and steadfast uh with Trump in order uh to prevent him from uh stealing our land and resources. So he unites the Iranian people further. He tells the world of his openly uh 18th century, 19th century, early 20th century imperial ambitions, but I don't think it helps the United States, uh and he's going to fail. Last night, uh that huge offensive, uh, they uh it was somewhat bigger than uh the previous attack, but the Iranian response was also uh equally uh tough. Uh the United States didn't open the trade of homos, it's not going to be able to open this rate of homos, and meanwhile, the global economic situation gets worse by the day.

SPEAKER_06 39:12

Professor, I I want to ask the last time you were on a show, forgive me if I'm wrong, you seem quite optimistic about a potential deal. Um, you know, we've interviewed you several times. Uh you seem fairly optimistic, and you're very tapped in. You of course have accompanied some of these delegations uh as an observer. This time around, you know, just monitoring some of your communications, you don't seem uh nearly as optimistic. And I know that you speak to many of the people uh who are in power. What is the feeling in the higher echelons of power in Tehran?

SPEAKER_03 39:41

I'm I've never been very optimistic. I'm just in in general, I'm not a pessimistic person. And I I am an optimistic person despite all the horrors that we see every day. You wake up in the morning and you look at your uh social media and you said you see dead bodies in Gaza and Lebanon and so on. But in general, I I am hopeful for the future. I believe that uh at the end of the day, the United States is going to have to back down, whether it's by signing an agreement that's reasonable, or whether it's just going to have to sort of walk away or melt away, which is not going to be easy tomorrow. But the fact is that Iran has during the 39 Days War, uh, during 39 days of hot war, it has shown that it it could defeat a superpower, and it could defeat a superpower with its broad coalition, the regimes of the region, the Israeli regime, the collective West through their maximum pressure, sanctions, even uh Torquia's uh US bases in Turkey, NATO, Airwax, AWAX jets were being used against Iran, the Republic of Azerbaijan was working against Iran, this huge coalition fighting against Iran, directly or indirectly, and the Iranians won the war. So the Iranians are competent. Now, what Trump is trying to do is to strangle the Iranian people. That's what the siege is about, to prevent food from getting in, medicine from getting in, from preventing Iran uh from gaining wealth through its uh oil trade. But um but first of all, that's a double-edged sword and it's bringing down the global economy. And second of all, if it was so successful, we wouldn't now be seeing the United States constantly breaking the ceasefire over the past few weeks and attacking Iranian positions. So obviously in siege warfare, the United States, they just sit back and relax and wait till the Iranian people die of hunger.

SPEAKER_12 41:45

I wanted to get your reaction to if we could put A8 up on the screen here. There was a report from Amwatch Media that effectively the uh new bombing campaign from the US and presumably the social media bluster threats, we're gonna bomb the S sound of you, we're gonna take Karg Island, et cetera, are part of providing sort of rhetorical and military cover to enable Trump to accept a deal that is, in fact, close to being finalized, um, with credit to Qatar for mediating this. Now, this is based allegedly on, you know, an insider in Tehran. You do you think that that could be the case? Zagar and I were just talking about a recall back when there was the, you know, the threat to end the entire civilization and to um bomb all of the infrastructure and the bridges in Iran. And that seemed to be an attempt by Trump to provide some sort of tough guy political cover for himself to then enable, you know, the um the agreement of the what we're calling a ceasefire, which is very much not a ceasefire at this point. So I'm wondering if you see these renewed threats and even the bombing campaign as an attempt by him to provide himself some political cover so he can say, see, look, we scared the Iranians, we bombed the shit out of them. They were so scared, they came to the table, and now we've got this great deal.

SPEAKER_03 43:12

I don't know because I don't think anyone knows what goes on in Trump's head. And so I have given up predicting Trump. And I for for a long time now, whenever people contact me and say Trump has said this or he said that, will he come and tell us what you think he'll do next? I say, look, I don't even read his material. I don't smart. Uh-huh. Something different, and whatever I say is going to turn out wrong. So I uh I I really don't know. It sounds nice, but I don't see Atar uh as being relevant because Batar is not a mediator. It is Pakistan, even though Pakistan is only uh sending the written messages back and forth. It is possible, and this is something that has been said in the past that Trump may. In fact, the belief was in Iran many weeks ago that the United States will ultimately attack Iran again and then uh uh change its policies if that would be possible. So it's not impossible, but uh I don't think uh we can I don't think that uh that's something that we should be uh uh that I don't think that's something that we can I don't think we can make predictions about Trump because uh he's just uh he I mean his negotiators they have basically agreed on almost everything. We know that the the general terms of the agreement and uh the Iranians are not going to accept any changes. Or it there are some differences right now, but they're not the the general terms of the agreement are pretty clear. But every now and then Trump comes up and comes out and says that I'm not going to give Iran's assets back, or I'm not going to lift the siege, or I'm not going to um uh end the sanctions. Well, your negotiators have written all this down on paper. So I don't know what he's going to do ultimately. I'm sure he's under a huge amount of pressure from the Zionist lobby and the Israeli regime not to sign this. If I think if if it wasn't for them, he would have signed this agreement a long time ago. In fact, I don't think there would have been a war in the first place. But uh we are where we are, and I I I'm I don't want to make predictions because whatever I say, you can be absolutely sure it'll turn out to be wrong.

SPEAKER_06 45:31

See, this is fascinating to me. So okay, let's let's stick then. Uh you say you don't want to look at Trump. Let's stick with Iran. Let's put V1 up here on the screen. I'll read it to you since I know you can't see it. Uh, this is per uh our Barak Rabbi. He says Iranian and U.S. officials held parallel talks with Qatari mediators in Doha over the last two days. The Qataris tried to arrange a trilateral meeting to directly negotiate on the remaining gaps, but the Iranians refused. What do you first of all? I mean, I'm I'm sure you know maybe some of these mediators. Can you tell us a little bit about their thinking? Why are they refusing to meet one-on-one with the United States, or at least in this case with the Doha, the Qataris as mediators?

SPEAKER_03 46:12

Well, as far as I know, and uh I I have to I have to look into this, but as far as I know, Doha's role has been mostly about facilitating the transfer of Iranian stolen assets back to Iran.

SPEAKER_06 46:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

The reason why Iran wants these is because Iran in the past, whenever they negotiated with the United States, when it came down to implementation, the Americans would cheat Iran. Obama did that. It's that's always been the case with America. So here they're saying, no, at the very beginning, you have to end the genocide, you have to end the slaughter in Lebanon and Gaza, you have to end the war, and you have to hand over that money. And then we can go forward because we know that if we start the deal, you when you don't hand them over, we're never going to see our money again. So uh uh that is that is one issue. Uh Doha um it whether it's Doha or Pakistan or anyone else, uh the Iranians prefer not to negotiate directly with the United States because uh the United States, whenever we did negotiate with them directly, it it bore no fruit. It made them more demanding, it made them more aggressive, and later on they refused to acknowledge uh many of the promises that they made. For Iran, the best thing right now is for everything to be on paper. Trump tomorrow says that I never agreed to uh end the siege. All they have to do is say your negotiators wrote this down on paper. We spent a full day in Islamabad, uh, and the two sides were negotiating from morning till night. The Iranian team had experts with them. The chief negotiator was an associate professor at my university, the speaker of parliament. Uh, on one hand, the deputy head at the Supreme National Security Council, another professor at a different university, the third, the foreign minister, a PhD holder, and then on the other side, you had Vance, and you had two uh real estate agents. And uh Vance was from morning till night making phone calls uh to people in Washington and and and Israel, and uh he had no authority, they were not serious. The Iranian side had experts from the central bank, the head of the central bank was there, the Iranian uh the Iranians are experts in different fields, so that they could solve all the issues, but the Americans were not serious. So the uh necessity of the two decides sitting together, I don't think really, I don't think there's a necessity for them to sit together. If the Americans at some point do sign a deal and they'd abide by the deal, then perhaps in future they could have direct negotiations. But at the moment, all they do is bomb Iran and make threats. And exit after consuming lots of alcohol, he goes on his rants, or at least it seems like he's taking alcohol. I hope he's drinking alcohol because if he's not and he's talking like this, that's really scary. But uh, you know, what's the use of speaking to these people directly?

SPEAKER_12 49:18

So let me ask you, let's let's say the threats from Trump are real, right? And they're really gonna do some sort of an operation and try to take Carg Island, that they're going to escalate um even beyond what's already happened overnight. What do you see as the options on the table for an Iranian response?

SPEAKER_03 49:38

You know, I've I've discussed this during the war, during the 39-day war on uh on different programs. The Iranians want the United States to enter Iranian territory. They want them to occupy parts of Iran because that's when they can hit the United States the hardest. When the Americans occupy islands, when they occupy the mainland, then uh the Iranians will hit they just as the Iranians have protected all these underground missile cities and drone cities, uh an extraordinary achievement, something that uh military universities will be discussing for decades to come, and all these underground factories and assets and so on, they also made preparations for land battles as well, because the this whole purpose, the whole purpose of all of this was to defend Iran against an American invasion. And uh therefore, when the United States comes in, then the Iranians can strike them with missiles, with drones, with artillery, with ambushes, and so on and so forth. I mean, look at the Israeli regime right now in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is hitting them very hard, despite the fact that Hezbollah is completely surrounded. You have one proxy of the United States in Syria, ISIS, the Al-Qaeda government. You have the government in Beirut, which is a U.S. proxy. It has no popular mandate. They are trying to squeeze the resistance. They don't allow the refugees from the south to go into different cities and neighborhoods. They're just prevented from moving around in their own country. They won't let aid from Iraq or Iran, blankets, pants, food, anything to get to them. They want to starve the people, they want to break their will. And uh then, of course, uh all of many of these refugees gathered into Dahiy, the southern Beirut, and then Israel wanted to flatten it. And of course, no one in the West cared, so Iran had to step in. But the point is that the reason why the Israelis are being so genocidal is because they're in such rage that Hezbollah is hitting them hard across the border in the south. So if Hezbollah can do that to Israel, you can be absolutely certain that Iran, after being able to defeat the United States literally on the battlefield after 39 days, they can defeat the United States on the ground. What the Iranians want to happen in this war is to make the war so costly for the United States that one year from now, two years from now, five years from now, if someone in the United States says, let's go to war with Iran, everyone says, no, let's not go there. That's not an option. That is Iran's ultimate goal.

SPEAKER_12 52:30

Well, Professor, thank you so much for for joining us and providing your immediate reaction and analysis. We always value your time.

SPEAKER_03 52:37

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Benjamin. Just one final point. Sure. And that is that uh I would, you know, as a as a teacher at university, I would advise your audience, and I've said this on other shows, to read some books on Iran. One is uh called Going to Tehran by Flint and Hillary Labret, who worked in the White House to academics. Uh I think if you invite Hilary Labret, she would be a good guess, an excellent guest. Another by Al uh Alistair Crook, a book called Resistance. They would better understand what resistance means in Iranian culture and in the culture of the access of resistance. And there's also another very small book by Peter Oborn, who is a conservative in the UK, who uh wrote uh about the Iranian nuclear program. It's a very easy read uh called um A Danger Dangerous Delusion. Uh and I think that would be uh these three books that people read, then they'd have a better understanding of Iran. And I think it's important for people to understand Iran better.

SPEAKER_12 53:40

Well, we have a lot of readers in our audience. We're always getting requests for you know what books to read. So I'm sure they will appreciate that, and we appreciate it as well.

SPEAKER_06 53:47

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Hey, if you like that video.

SPEAKER_12 53:53

So, in the midst of all of this, Trump got asked yesterday about how this is all working out economically for Americans. There was a very hot inflation report that Emily and Ryan covered on the show, and you will not believe what the president had in response to a question about this inflation. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_05 54:15

Could that be a no?

SPEAKER_13 54:16

I love it. The numbers were trying to triumph. You know what I really love? I love the inflation. But you know why? Because as soon as this war is over, you know, I can say it now. Something in Indonesia. You know, we've been taking out millions of barrels of oil. Nobody knows it. You know who doesn't know about it? Iran until right now. We took out the other night

Trump Says He Loves Inflation

SPEAKER_13 54:40

22 ships. Late at night with no lights. Because they don't have any radar, because we blasted the crap out of them. We took out, that's why oil's $85 a barrel. I mean, you take a look. Remember when I did this, I said, look, the one bad thing will be we hit the best economy we've ever hit. And I said to my people, I had Scott, I had Howard, I had Pete, I had all, I had Todd in the room. I said, the one thing we have to do now, we had just hit the highest stock market in history, highest 401ks in history. Everything was going well. And I said, I hate to do this to you guys, but Iran's gonna have a nuclear weapon very soon.

SPEAKER_12 55:21

So he literally says the numbers were great, and I love the inflation. Yes. And then pivots to talking about this supposed scheme that is getting some small percentage of barrels of oil through the Strait of Puerto Rico.

SPEAKER_06 55:34

I love inflation. Uh, somebody can back that up with what else did he say? I don't care about, I don't think about Americans' finances.

SPEAKER_12 55:42

Well, we we have that. We we can do a little trip down memory lane because this is far from the first insanely honest, actually, but disgusting thing that he has said about uh the finances of Americans. So the latest is I love the inflation, um, great bumper sticker for Republicans, I think, going into the midterms. Uh previously he said, well, we can't have childcare because we've got to pay for these wars. And also, by the way, I don't think about America's financial situation whatsoever. This is D1C. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_13 56:10

Don't send any money for daycare because the United States can't take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states, we have all these other people, we're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. You gotta let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for but we it's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing military protection. We have to guard the country. But all these little things, all these little scams that have taken place over, you have to you have to let states take care of them, Russell, and you have to do it.

SPEAKER_11 57:10

Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters if we're not talking about Iran, we can't have a duplicate weapon. I don't think about authority, but that's just about anybody.

SPEAKER_12 57:21

I think about what the I don't think about Americans' financial situation. It's incredible he even has an approval rating in the 30s at this point. He's really trying to make himself the most hated president, perhaps maybe the most hated person in American history.

SPEAKER_06 57:35

I think for him, and what he just I think I genuinely think any political skill is gone. Gone. I think that this has scrambled him to his core because I think this is the first time ever, very LBJ-esque, the bullshit master, the domestic political comeback kid, multiple-time survivor, got too big for his britches and stumbled into one of the most historic strategic disasters in US history. And then every aspect, in fact, we're gonna talk about Epstein. In both cases, they have something in common. Every single tactic that they tried to use did not work. And there's a reason for it. I think that reality is one of the few times, this is one of the few times reality has truly caught up with him. On the Epstein stuff, it's like, dude, you and your whole administration said you were gonna release them. Now you're covering it up. There's just, there's no getting around it. And in fact, as you know, in a preview of the Epstein story, they were like, Well, he's bullshit. I've seen him survive everything. I'm like, well, why can't he survive this? It's like, well, he can't survive it because his name is in it. And he said, I was going to release him. And I think with him, he said, I'm gonna collapse him, it's gonna be a great victory, it's gonna be like Venezuela. We're here over a hundred days later. It is a disaster. 13 Americans are dead. The prize of well, I don't need to go through the whole list. Yeah. So the only way is that you just deny, deny, deny you attack, attack, attack. And I think that what he has done now is backed himself into this corner where he has to say this type of insane shit because it's existential now for him, for his legacy. By the way, that's terrifying. Because when you say start to say things like, I don't love inflation, I don't think about America's financial situation, you are post-politics in a way, because it's the second term. Yeah, you have nothing to worry about. He doesn't care about the midterms, and he definitely doesn't care about JD fans or Marco Rubio. He could give two shits about them. He wants his name on, uh he wants to face on Mount Rushmore. And if he doesn't carve it there himself, you know, he thinks this is the only way he's gonna get.

SPEAKER_12 59:24

Yeah, he wants to leave a lasting mark on the world. And um, you know, that is driving, I think, a lot of the way that he, whether it's the ballroom or whether it's trying to remake the entire entire Middle East through threat and through force, that is what he's focused on. And when he tells you he doesn't think about your financial situation at all, he is being honest and just judging by his actions. I think that is absolutely accurate. Leaves it to, you know, Republicans to then go out and oh, I don't know, we didn't mean that. And no, it was taken out of context, blah, blah, blah. So here's the latest iteration of that. And by the way, I called this. The moment Trump said this, I said, Republicans are getting asked about this, they're gonna say, Oh, he was taken out of context by the fake news media, blah, blah, blah. Let's take a listen to what speaker Mike Johnson has to say.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

Again, not Mike. I knew somebody was gonna ask you that. It was totally out of context. You know what he was talking about. No. The president is laser focused on the domestic economic situation. He is working to bring down prices, he's working to get the straightover moves reopened. We have passed legislation. He's used executive orders to get the cost of living down. But everybody got their highest tax uh refunds they've had in their whole lives. They're getting uh greater paychecks. There's all sorts of great economic indicators, but there's still challenges, gas prices among them. So what he was saying is it's gonna be great to have that number and compare it to what comes next when we get these situations resolved. That'll be a fun thing to consider and to compare.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:55

That was I mean, we played the whole clip for you, just so you guys know. Like, even, I mean, we literally played the entire clip, right? There's no context. He goes on some rant.

SPEAKER_12 1:01:04

Yeah, he goes on some rant about this like, you know, operation that they're allegedly doing the straight of four moves. He says he's laser focused on the domestic uh priorities of Americans, uh, one of them being reopening the straight to four moves, which is closed why. Can anyone remind us why it's closed to begin with? I mean, just absolutely insane. And to his point about, oh, well, they got a good big tax refund. We'll put Z2 up on the screens. Just the gas price increase alone. Okay, this is where I'm talking about groceries and the overall inflation, just the increase in gas prices have now wiped down an entire year worth of wage gains. So, you know, I think that they were really counting on, okay, people are gonna get somewhat larger refunds when they file their taxes. They're gonna be able to process that before the midterms. That's gonna provide us with a political bump and juice the economy, et cetera, heading into this critical political period. Uh that is gone. I mean, the first time you went to fill up your tank during the Iran war, that's basically out the window. So it's preposterous that they're still trying to hang their hat on these, you know, minuscule little refund bumps that they gave to the population.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:11

The data tells the devastating story. January 2025, that's literally when Trump took office. That's how average hourly wage gain is back to. And we know the story of where things continue to go from here. Ryan and Emily broke it down yesterday. Consumer prices are up 4.2%. That's just in terms of the way the labor department and all those other people uh can you know configure the data. Now, just think about we are going, you know, it's June 11th, starting to see a lot of tourists around here in Washington. It's just the beginning. So it's the beginning of tourist season, driving season, flying season. People are gonna go on vacation, July 4th barbecues, not you know, not even a month away. Uh they're gonna see the beef prices, they're gonna see the drive, you know, they're gonna fill up their tank. And I think all of those things are going to continue to spiral on top of the already precarious financial situation. And that is just heading into the midterms. And I think on top of it, you see a number of other things, like the corruption. You you can't ignore it now at this point. A lot of people can ignore a lot of corruption wherever shit's good. When we're all rich, whatever. Not whatever, but you you you get what I'm saying. Most people can look away and say, yeah, my 401k is high, so what do I care? Well, whenever we're not doing so well, let's put this up here. This, I I couldn't, I I keep trying to figure this one out. D4, D3, sorry. Uh Trump posted yesterday a troop social post where he said, Wow, City was ranked number one in topping MA advisory market by value in Q1. Congratulations to Jane F and all of her great people. They worked really hard. Big comeback for City. This is for Jane Fraser, the chief of Citibank. Nobody on Wall Street has any idea what this is about.

SPEAKER_12 1:03:52

Apparently, the number, whatever he's citing here is not even true. Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:55

So, yeah, so the number's not true. Nobody on Wall Street has any idea what is what he's talking about. It came from somewhere. Um, I just want to know what money changed hands, what phone call, for what purpose, for what deal for the Trump family. Is this all beyond? Because it it doesn't just happen. It doesn't just happen. You don't just get make it to the uh Trump so you know, true social. It's like whenever he posted about Palantir and then put the stock ticker in there, you're like, okay, all right, like I see what's happening there, right?

SPEAKER_12 1:04:24

I mean, he's just so out in the open. The whole thing is so out in the open. He just doesn't even care to attempt to hide it at this point, with you know, his crypto coin being sort of like the chief money-making scheme. The way his net worth has soared in his second term is just truly a historic cash grab, a historic theft that we are all witnessing. And, you know, yeah, when you're doing well, I guess maybe you look at that and you go, oh, it's not great, but at least, you know, things are going better for everybody. He's profiting the most and his daughter's getting her private island, but I'm doing okay. But when you're seeing going to the gas pump every day, like I cannot afford this, and I cannot make rent and I cannot buy uh steak anymore or chicken anymore. I'm going to the canned protein section, um, then yeah, it's it's gonna hit you a little bit different. And, you know, there are some people in the economy, uh, not just the Trump family, who are doing extraordinarily well, which again paints a very uh uh frustrating, uh enraging portrait for your average American. We have this SpaceX IBO that is happening uh tomorrow. It will start trading, and we can put um D4 up on the screen here. So uh it's gonna turn 4,400 SpaceX employees into millionaires. It is likely to turn Elon Musk himself into a trillionaire. Okay, so the at the very, very, very top end of the spectrum of you know, The people who are already wildly wealthy or happen to luck out and get in on what is very likely a massive AI bubble, things are going very well. You know, when you look at the stock market, all the growth is concentrated in these few tech stocks that have, you know, this

SpaceX IPO And A New Gilded Age

SPEAKER_12 1:06:18

valuation, almost everybody acknowledges the SpaceX valuation is absolutely insane when you look at what their actual revenue is coming in and the bet that they're placing here. But every, you know, they're pushing it out to retail to make sure that suckers can get in when the price is at its high. So they're the ones that end up holding the bag, et cetera. If this thing ultimately, you know, goes down significantly in value, which big IPOs usually do, at least initially. So in any case, you've got um quite a quite a portrait being painted for the American people of some people getting a small handful, getting, including our present, getting wildly wealthy beyond anyone's comprehension, while you have seen your entire year's worth of wage gains eaten up at the gas pump.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:02

Yeah, I mean, looking at it right now, the SP is still up as of today, I think, based upon uh SpaceX uh expectations. And if if I take a look at some of the other, you know, in other indicators, the European Central Bank actually this morning just raised interest rates by a quarter point uh for the first time, I think since 2025. It's or sorry, for the first time since 2023, which is crazy. So then consider our own Federal Reserve, where the current traders on Wall Street are betting that they're going to increase interest rates here. So we're gonna have high interest rates, high inflation. I mean, both of those, does that and then unemployment or sorry, the employment, because of the way that they measure it and all that, they're making it so that they're gonna continue to try demand destruction, further exacerbating housing and so much more. But yes, the dual screen of trillionaire, multi-I mean, thousands of new millionaires. This does not even factor in the open AI and anthropic IPOs, which will both somewhere around a trillion dollars. I mean, those three, there will probably be hundreds of new billionaires, tens of thousands of new millionaires. And when we say million, we're not talking about like one, two million. We're talking about like hundreds of millions of dollars. So real estate in Austin, San Francisco, LA, New York, like it's gonna be about to be a bonanza in any of these uh very high cost living hairs. The yacht market is going to explode. Like all I mean, I feel sick saying all this stuff, but it's true. Uh like high-end hotels in you know, Switzerland and all these other places are gonna be doing gangbusters. But for everybody else, if you're just sitting there uh measuring how much it costs to fill up your tank, like it's getting a lot worse. And yeah, I mean, look, I don't I don't have to tell you what the ingredients for that are societal.

SPEAKER_12 1:08:43

The the market for luxury mega yachts. No, it's and the market for spam, both going to explode, you know, buy some dollar general stock. Um, that's uh it's yeah, it's look, we already are beyond gilded age levels of wealth inequality. And it matters to people. You know, you cannot have a functioning society. You can't have a democracy when you've got trillionaires running around. I mean, we've already seen this with Elon Musk and the amount of money he was able to casually throw at the Trump campaign and, you know, uh put his thumb on the scales and then be granted dominion over basically the entire executive branch because of the money that he funneled into Trump's campaign at a pivotal moment. You know, we talk about like democracy crisis, there are a lot more to talk about there, too, by the way. They're um looking at banning mail ballots, making it so the USPS will not deliver mail ballots in states that don't send in their voter rolls to the federal government. But when you think more broadly about the democracy crisis, like you cannot have this level of wealth concentrated, have a Supreme Court that has said money is speech, and think that you are going to have any, any small D democratic representation. And we're we're already living that.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:58

It's total madness, especially with SpaceX. The ingredients, like you just said, are completely, you know, are all ready to go. We know exactly uh where we'll I don't know. Let's see. Maybe it'll end uh just like last time. Maybe it will. Okay, let's move on to Epstein. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people.

SPEAKER_12 1:10:16

And if you'd like to get the full show, add free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up at breakingpoints.com.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:22

That's right. Get the full show, help support the future of independent media at breakingpoints.com.

SPEAKER_16 1:10:30

Compensate it, make it reparation, black folk, indigenous folk, other folk, unfair, even white brothers and sisters who have gone to jail innocent, who deserve some kind of. Okay, I'll apply for it. You think I'll get it?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:43

Have you ever been unfairly targeted by the Department of Justice? Being unfairly prosecuted by the Department of Justice?

SPEAKER_07 1:10:48

Are those the people that are going to be in uh in this?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:51

The answer is no, yeah. So so the issue is the question is people who are paying for this flesh fund? Why do you know it's not gonna be disclosed?

DOJ Slush Fund And January 6 Payback

SPEAKER_07 1:10:57

Because it's because it's sense.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:01

I mean, we we don't we can't afford Medicare or Medicaid.

SPEAKER_10 1:11:04

He's he he he they cut it, and he has millions of citizens. No, he can't say that. He did say that we cannot afford medication.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:15

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:15

That's why I supported reparations for black people for the last 50 years.

SPEAKER_16 1:11:21

Try to rationalize this in some way, and I see you you're getting checkmated here because there's just no grounds for justification of this.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:29

Hello, everybody. Guys, does Poppy have a treat for you this morning or what? We got agent Double O Deep Throw Scott Jennings is back on the panel and on a new mission, Operation Spit or Swallow. Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but take it up with the DOJ. Let's get into this segment and we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_19 1:11:47

President Trump wants to reward his friends and some of his most notorious supporters with cash using your tax dollars. It is a deal worked out between the Justice Department and the IRS to settle Trump's lawsuits over leaks and claims of unfair treatment. A so-called anti-weaponization fund has been set up to dole out the money to pay Trump's allies who claim they were unfairly targeted by previous administrations. The amount $1.776 billion. A symbolic nod, of course, to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. By the way, it is possible the money that's in that fund could be tapped by January 6th regulars.

SPEAKER_13 1:12:27

This is uh reimbursing people that were horribly treated, horribly treated. It's anti-weaponization. They've been weaponized, uh, they've been in some cases imprisoned wrongly, they paid legal fees that they didn't have, they've gone bankrupt, their lives have been destroyed, and they turn out to be right. Because of you.

SPEAKER_19 1:12:44

OGOJ says anyone with a claim can file for an apology and a monetary settlement. The settlement says there are no partisan requirements. A group of five people will gatekeep the money, and the attorney general will pick them. In this case, that's Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer. But the president will have the ultimate power to fire any of the gatekeepers. The DOJ claims Trump himself will not receive any payments, but he will get a formal apology. Uh we've got a lot of folks at the table, and this is gonna be hot sauce, I can tell already, with the the size and the arm crossing. So we're gonna start with you, Ms. Anna Navarro. Um, is this a slash fund to appease his buddies, or is there something that is legitimate going on here?

SPEAKER_07 1:13:28

And the other part you forgot to mention is that there's gonna be no transparency according to them. They're not going right that they're not gonna know. We're not we the taxpayers who are paying for this are not gonna know who this is going to. This is so bad. It is so bad. It's I mean, it's so bad, prima fashion. It's just bad on its face. But then when you when you put it in context, in the fact that Americans can't afford gas, Americans can't afford groceries, farmers are going bankrupt all over this country. We are in the middle of a war that's now cost $50 billion. He wants $1.5 billion for a ballroom, he wants hundreds of million dollars for an arch. He wants $15 million to paint the reflecting pool. And then, and then you put on top of that now a $1.7 billion slush fund to pay his supporters and the people who feel victimized. I mean, I I'm I'm so old. I remember when uh most Republicans used to balk and be shocked and uh outraged by the idea of reparations to people who suffered slavery, but we're gonna be giving money to uh January 6th insurrectionists. That part's okay. Yeah, it's it's disgusting. Scott, is this reparations?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:40

Look, I I think there's a lot about it we don't know. I don't know who's on the committee. I don't know exactly who's gonna be applying for it.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:46

Um, the people that Trump support the people that Trump approves.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:50

Well, they say anybody can apply for it. And you know, I don't think Okay, I'll apply for it.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:54

You think I'll get it?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:55

Have you ever been unfairly targeted by the Department of Justice?

SPEAKER_07 1:14:57

I have been unfairly targeted by this administration, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:00

Have you been unfairly prosecuted by the Department of Justice?

SPEAKER_07 1:15:03

Are those the people that are going to be in uh in this?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:05

So the answer is no, yeah. So so the issue is the question is, has Shut up, Scott.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:10

Enough of you. You saw what he did there. He's trying to make it seem like the only ones getting the money are people who were prosecuted, when that is certainly not the case, and not one of the stipulations. Guys, the right strategy here, and someone said it in my comments, and it's exactly right, is let them get away with it. Don't make a big fuss about it. And when Dems are in full control of the government, do the same thing for injustices done to black descendants of enslaved people, for instance. Could you imagine? Which in a just world would be a normal outcome. But in this world, very unlikely. Guys, Denise, I need to become president someday. President Bapi would do some wild things, but in a good way. From reparations to changing the American flag to a bowl of rice and beans, national anthem to a Tupac song, I would have unlimited power. Guys, this is so insane to me. They're using our tax dollars, so we're literally going to be paying for some January 6th writer to get a check. They say for it's for anyone who's been wronged, but like, who is determining this that they were wrong? People that Trump um puts in those positions? Like, we all know what's gonna happen here. This it sounds to me, 1,600 people that Trump pardoned were arrested at the Capitol, along with some key henchmen and Trump are going to be getting this money, uh aside from Trump, are going to be getting this money. Guys, like we talked about this a couple of days ago, and you'll see here how the Republicans are jumping right on board with this and are going to be making these whoa, you don't think that people who've been wrongfully convicted and mistreated should get compensated? These people are a joke.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:54

Has anyone in the history of the United States ever been unfairly targeted by the Department of Justice? Of course they have, and there ought to be just at a top line a way for people to send for if they have been unfairly targeted. That having been said, this all started by the fact that Donald Trump had his tax returns unfairly and illegally leaked by the IRS. That's where all this started, and he was initially seeking damages for that, which he has given up. He'll receive no money as I understand it. And now it is morphed into this idea that there have been targeted. All of this makes me a little uncomfortable because it's a lot of money and it didn't go through the U.S. Congress. That's number one. Number two, I don't want to see a president necessarily handpicking people to get payments uh that could where he can be accused of just picking people out who are political allies. But do I want uh do I want a world where if you've been unfairly targeted by the federal government and it was truly unfair and you truly were had something uh done to you that should not have been done, do I think people should be able to seek recourse for that? Absolutely I do, because I think it probably happens not on a partisan basis, but it probably happens all the time. And I think people want to be able to seek uh some sort of damages if they've been unfairly targeted by the department or by the federal government.

SPEAKER_19 1:18:11

Right. I mean, I I guess the question is, you know, you can't the overarching thing that has people really is the January 6th writers, some of whom pled guilty. I was in one of the trials for the Proud Boys and for the Oath Keepers, and I and I watched the whole thing and watched it play out, and it played out as any justice, any trial would play out, and here they're pardoned, and they could seek money, should they be able to.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:36

My my personal view is anybody who committed documented violence against the government or against police officers, you know, they're they've not been unfairly treated. If they ended up being convicted of a crime because of violence they committed, you know, I got I got no real sympathy for them. Now, if there were people who were on the periphery that were swept up, over-prosecuted, whatever, and they have a you know a way to seek you know uh a recourse here, I have less of a problem with that. But uh, you know, I draw the line at violence. If you've committed political violence, if you attack the government building, if you attack police officers, uh I I got real no sense.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:12

Scott, you don't have a problem with Todd Blanche handpicking five people who could who Trump can fire at any moment and giving reparations that are then not uh disclosed to the American people who are paying for this lush fund?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:29

Why do you know it's not gonna be disclosed?

SPEAKER_07 1:19:30

Because it's it's because it says so.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:32

Is it being public in whole or in part?

SPEAKER_07 1:19:34

I mean, kind of like you know, like I have an issue with the So you wait, is it it is gonna be public in whole or in party?

SPEAKER_09 1:19:41

There are points that they could redact if they not discussed. I think that's a great example.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:48

I have an issue. I have an issue with the congressional slush fund that pays it that has paid. I agree with you. That's all done in secret claims uh with our taxpayer. It's all done in secret, I agree. And that should be transparent. It is shameful that it's not. It is ridiculous that we're even considering this in any way the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:05

Look, I think transparency is important, and I'll and I'll let you look, I do think partisanship aside, politics aside, people are often, have been, will be treated unfairly by the federal government and the department of justice. There were certainly people during the Biden years, you know, pro-lifers sitting here praying quietly on sidewalks who were treated unfairly. So look, I I don't think we could say the federal government and the department of justice is perfect. It is not perfect. And if somebody did have something happen to them that's unfair, are you saying they shouldn't be able to petition their government for some sort of recourse here? Because I I do believe that.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:40

Now, whether the fund is the right thing, they can't at a state level, at a federal level, people who have been unjustly uh targeted. I mean, we see it all the time with people who've been who've spent, I don't know, decades in prison and it turns out that they are innocent. It happens. And then all of a sudden, they you know they get out, it's they're proven innocent and they are given reparation for those people.

SPEAKER_19 1:21:01

Of course. How do you see this? I mean, the king thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:05

I mean, and guys, $1.8 billion. If you do some quick couch math, 1600 people were pardoned. What are they each getting more than a million bucks? How many more people are we talking about who are who were wrongfully mistreated or convicted or whatever? 1,600 people? 1.8 billion dollars? That's more than a million apiece. Guys, this is just hilarious. Now Republicans care about who may have been wrongfully convicted. We all know this isn't the case here, but for argument's sake, let's say that's what it is. When for decades this has been done to black and Hispanics, we're trying to fix some of those injustices. They would say, Oh, the devs just love violent criminals. We just love criminals because why? I don't know. They are soft on crime, right? That's what they've always said. They want your streets filled with violent gangs. I mean, just the hypocrisy is amazing. This is exactly what should be done to the so-called party of law enforcement. Republicans love violent criminals, they are literal traitors of this nation. I mean, prove me wrong, but the house, we have proof right here. And you can try and twist and shout all you want, like a beetle. Beatles, the band. Twist and shout is a song they sack. Never mind. Honestly, the best strategy, like I said, let them do it. And then the damned have their own ammo. And they could do their own form of this using direct tax dollars from the wealthiest American citizens. Freeman has a patriotic thing to do. Wealthy people, surely, surely you want to help out your fellow man who was wrongfully mistreated. No.

SPEAKER_19 1:22:43

Family come back after what happened to Dr. Martin Luther King being jailed. I mean, look how how do you see this playing out?

SPEAKER_16 1:22:50

Well, first I just want to salute you, Sister Sarah. First time I get a chance to meet you. High quality journalists, just like you and Abby. It's high quality, it's always a blessing. But I just want to hear my dear brother Scott try to rationalize this in some way. And I see you're getting checkmated here because there's just no grounds for justification of this, unless you open the gates and you got trillions of dollars for ex-slaves and ex-Gen Crow people. You got 6,000 of the innocence project just at Harvard Law School of people who've been incarcerated. And you got 2.2 of mass incarceration. I've been blessed to teach in prison for 49 years. Now, tomorrow is Malcolm X's birthday. He's 101. What is it about Malcolm? Well, what we're talking about is just this is just the peak of an iceberg. When you're living in an empire that is unraveling because the hatred and the greed is overwhelming. And so there's no sincerity, there's no integrity, there's no character. So people will justify anything in the name of power and might as opposed to integrity and what is right. That's a spiritual crisis. That's a moral crisis. Malcolm Mitch was right about that. I was glad to see his face on that magnificent banner down there in Alabama when they marched in settlement Montgomery. Martin was there, Fannie Lou Hammond was there. But it's not a question of skin pigmentation, it's a question of character, integrity, and the attempt to do what is right. There's no integrity in justifying $1.8 billion of people who engage in criminal activity actually kill some policeman and they get compensated, they get reparation, and black folk, indigenous folk, other folk, unfair, even white brothers and sisters who've gone to jail innocent, who deserve some kind of compuntability, there's no way you can justify this. But this is just one peak of an iceberg. What we're seeing is spiritual sickness, moral decrepitude, and political corruption on steroids. But the good news is you still got folk in the country who are trying to exemplify some integrity and character and courage.

SPEAKER_19 1:25:06

Peter, is there, and and to you also, Sabrina, guys?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:10

That's me. He's talking about me. Trust me.

SPEAKER_19 1:25:12

Is there a way to fight this? Because there has to be someone who's injured by this, right? So that the public, the general public, who say, hey, these are my tax dollars, they're not really considered.

SPEAKER_20 1:25:21

Oh, if only the taxpayers have a claim against frivolous spending by the government. That would be a wonderful thing to have. No, I mean, the Trump administration is going about this all wrong. What you're supposed to do is you're supposed to have folks set up a nonprofit, and then you either have a company do the third-party payments into the federal government for leniency, or you just allocate tax dollars from like the Inflation Reduction Act, and that goes to your political allies. That's how you button it up, you make it legal, and you avoid all of those. But to your point, like on the historic discrimination. I mean, there was two billion in the Inflation Reduction Act that was allocated for black farmers in the South who had been historically discriminated against by the USDA. Like, there have been tons of programs that have done this. I think there's a very legitimate claim, and let's be very clear, I agree with Scott. We're not talking about, and if they are, I condemn it, money going to folks who violently assaulted police officers. I know folks who were at January 6th, broke no laws except they were on the side of an invisible line, did not enter any building, were not violent, you know, whose lives were upended and ruined, where other folks who were maybe not of the same political persuasion, who had committed, you know, similar minor offenses weren't even charged or didn't even have those charges brought up. So I think it's important that there is parity. And if there was an overcorrection or an over, you know, uh exertion of one direction, that that tilt.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:47

All right, Nickel back, I I'm tired of hearing you. Guys, again, if it's not the 1600 people that were pardoned, that would be a million, over a million dollars for 1600 people. So if it's less than that, what is it 800 people then that are gonna get this? Two million over two million dollars a piece? Guys, this math ain't mathing. And guys, this is the problem is that no one's being outright and direct as to what Trump is doing here. They are trying to soften it. We all know who Trump is. This isn't about those small possible handful of who may have been wrongfully caught up. This is just like the parties he did for the January 6th riders. How many people do they think, you know, wrongfully got caught up? If 1,600 people were pardoned, right, who were arrested, how many possibly people who were wrongfully five, ten handful of people? 1.8 billion? This doesn't make sense. This is a reward to those very same people who um Trump pardoned. And it's why Trump wants control of who gets the money and who doesn't, and wants control of who gets to be on this whatever this panel. Like Trump has never done the right thing in his damn life. We we're really Talking about this, like if this has anything to do with injustices, this is about paying off occultists. Anyone with an effing brain can see this. Just like going after Comey, Letitia James, Federal Trader Powell. I mean, the list goes on and on. This is the inverse. It's about rewarding the traitors that helped you fill out the cruelty. Republicans are going, are not going to push back on this. You best believe it. I mean, a very known Republicans said they were American patriots. Can you guess who that was in the comments?

SPEAKER_09 1:28:32

Back towards the sun. Can I just say that we're talking about nearly $1.8 billion to the same president that said the the US government can't afford to pay for Medicare, Medicaid, child care, or um daycare. So I think there are a lot of, and now you have on top of that the gas crisis where people are paying, you know, over $1.50 than they were before the war started. So I think when you look at this giant slush fund of money, I think people are going to look at that and say, well, what about me? What about what can the government do for me? And this is not going to benefit people. So I I you know I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:06

When did he say we we don't we can't afford Medicare or Medicaid?

SPEAKER_10 1:29:09

He said he he he's he they've cut it. And he also said for non-citizens.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:23

Guys, I have to do it, don't I?

SPEAKER_13 1:29:25

DJ Poppy, hit that track to make up. But we it's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things, they can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing military protection. We have to guard the country. But all these little things, all these little scams that have taken place over you have to recognize.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:49

But he did also say that the federal government cannot afford daycare and childcare for millions of families all around the country. So I think when you look at a a slush fund of this magnitude, people rightfully are thinking that's absolutely egregious. I mean it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:03

But but does everybody here agree generally that it is possible for the federal government and the Department of Justice to make a mistake?

SPEAKER_16 1:30:10

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:11

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_16 1:30:12

But the mistake can be chronic.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:14

I totally agree with you. So we all agree that mistakes can be made. That's right. Do we all also agree that maybe it ought to be uh there ought to be a way for people to address those mistakes? I personally think. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:26

That's why I supported reparations for black people for the last 50 years. That's what the argument is.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:34

Well, I mean, what do you mean, why? Like it's not an impartial board. Why would the executive branch not be involved in the administration of it?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:40

Oh no, come on, put me on this panel. Corner, Scott, and say you're right, Scott. Now, are you for reparations for black people who are descendants of the enslaved? Aye, Poppito Cornell was, Brother Cornell was, you had him there. Because surely, I'm willing to say maybe there were some who were wrongfully caught up in all of the January 6th stuff. In a world of numbers, anything is possible, Poppy, right? But surely, an injustice like slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, redlining, and on and on, surely. I mean, those must be a massively bigger injustice. So of course, Sky, you would be for reparations for black people, right? Punk ass? At least some form of reparation? No. You wouldn't go around with Republicans crying calling it anti-white, right? Woke. DI on steroids. Surely you wouldn't call it that, right? I mean, come on, guys, that was a lamb. You have to see those openings and pounce on these idiots. If it's coming out of the Department of Justice.

SPEAKER_19 1:31:44

I think what you were arguing was transparency so that we know where the money goes. I agree with that.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:49

So if you know where the money goes and you know what the details of the cases are, then maybe you could pick each individual case apart. Peter is right. There were some people who did terrible things, committing violence against cops, terrible. But there were some people who got swept up in things, dramatically overcharged, and they weren't treated the same as people who got into similar situations under other administrations. That's absolutely also true. Should they not have a way to get their lives back?

SPEAKER_07 1:32:14

But it's also true that the first act that this man did as precedent is issue a blanket amnesty and pardon for all of them. Not look at it case by case, not look at the ones that had been violent against police, which you say you condemn, but do it in a blanket fashion. And so that's not a good precedent for somebody who wants to issue reparations to people from January 6th.

SPEAKER_19 1:32:38

I mean, they have been pardoned, so technically they could file for this and potentially get money, and there's a lot there. So we'll have to see, wait and see what this happens. But if if we don't know who's getting it, then no one's going to understand exactly who is getting a piece of the pie. I there's a lot of questions here. I think look transparency.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:56

I haven't even talked about the constitutionality of it. You alluded to it. Congress gets to Congress gets has the power of the party.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:05

It is a question.

SPEAKER_19 1:33:06

It's a big one. All right, we all agree on that one thing, so I'm gonna leave it right there. Next.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:11

I mean, guys, Trump called these people that he pardoned the 1600 people wrongfully convicted, American patriots. So think about it. Why wouldn't they be um applying for this this fund? And why wouldn't Trump approve it? He already said they were wrongfully mistreated or convicted or whatever. Like, again, we all know what this is about, and it pisses me off that this panel talks about it like it's a like it isn't a straight-off payoff to these traitors of this nation. I get the argument. Some some literally a handful of may have been wrongfully um caught up in this. Fine, a handful. $1.8 billion is not a handful. My argument also is that we know Trump and Trump isn't looking to be empathetic to those who were caught up, rather to show his loyalty and to pay those guys back who helped him in a failed cruelty of the US government. My fuck. Sorry, I said I wasn't gonna curse anymore. But I'm gonna leave it there, guys. Let me know what you think about all this in the comments. Please leave a like and subscribe. Really helps the channel, really helps push the message out there. And I'll catch you in the next one.

SPEAKER_15 1:34:19

Do not friend, because of those who are evil, or be envious of those who do wrong. For like the grass, they will soon wither. Like green plants, they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Permit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will do this. He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath. Do not fret. It leads only to evil. For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. A little while, and the wicked will be no more. Though you look for them, they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity. The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them. But the Lord loves the wicked, for he knows their day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright. But their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken. Better the little that the righteous have, than the wealth of many wicked. For the power of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. The blameless spend their days under the Lord's care, and their inheritance will endure forever. In times of disaster they will not wither. In days of famine they will enjoy plenty. But the wicked will perish. Though the Lord's enemies are like the flowers of the field, they will be consumed, they will go up in smoke. The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously. Those the Lord blesses will inherit the land, but those he curses will be destroyed. The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him. Though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken, or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely. Their children will be a blessing. Turn from evil and do good. Then you will dwell in the land forever. For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. Wrongdoers will be completely destroyed. The offspring of the wicked will perish. The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever. The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak what is just. But he soon passed away and was no more. Though I looked for him, he could not be found. Consider the blameless, observe the upright. A future awaits those who seek peace, but all sinners will be destroyed. There will be no future for the wicked. The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord. He is their stronghold in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:34

Inside the White House freakout over the Epstein files. So uh here, what we found out, this is a very long excerpt from a forthcoming book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. It's basically a TikTok of July 17th, 2025, where what they say, President Trump's top officials filed in the White House situation room. What they found is that the most senior advisors had gathered without him to figure out how to gain some measure of control over a very different kind of crisis threatening to engulf the presidency, the Epstein files. Ten days earlier, the Justice Department and the FBI had jointly released a memo that bluntly stated that their review had found no client list of powerful men for whom the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had allegedly procured underage girls and young women.

Inside The Epstein Files White House Panic

SPEAKER_06 1:40:20

And it was about to get worse. The Wall Street Journal was preparing the article about Trump's relationship with Epstein, including the birthday book. They say that J.D. Vance took a seat at the head of the table of the conference room, and he said, this is a huge problem. Arrayed around him were the White House Chief of Staff, the White House counsel, the press secretary, the deputy chief of staff, the commons director, the deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, the Associate Attorney General, and the Deputy Chiefs of Staff, James Blair, Attorney General Pam Bondy, and FBI Director Cash Patel on speakerphone. Quote, the vice president appeared panicked to others in the room. Some senior officials had the impression Vance had bought into the darkest theories about Epstein and a cabal of predators within the country's rural class. Wiles would then tell others the vice president proved himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official said he had been pounding the Epstein issue since the release of the memo and was privately pressing for the administration to release all of the Epstein files. He had even floated to colleagues in extraordinary PR gambit that the White House enlists Tucker Carlson to interview Ghlaine Maxwell in prison because it could help the president if Maxwell was willing to say Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein. He believed that all the files should be released. He then got an immense amount of pushback from people who were loyal to Trump, here, including James Blair, was a deputy chief of staff at the White House. He said, with all due respect, the communication strategy of this group got us here. I don't know if that is going to get us out. And if you're going to go in front of the press, you've got a lot of work to do. He began to ask pointed mock questions, demonstrating how difficult a news conference might be. And the president's former defense attorney, Todd Blanch, had a unique perspective. He was better equipped than anyone else in the room to weigh the ideas around Trump's personal and political interests, and he laid out what's their best option, which is eventually what they went to, to try and unseal the grand juries, to do this interview with Ghlaine Maxwell. But what they point to very specifically is that many of the people inside of the administration, from Vance, Cash Patel, and Bon Gino, Bon Gino especially, who at various points screamed at Susie Wiles. He said that you fucked this up, you covered this up. Many of them all wanted more either maximum transparency or release. There were two people who pushed, it was Trump loyalists and Donald Trump himself, who was the most opposed at the end of the day to releasing anything, turned it into the quote hoax. And then, this is the true crime, in my opinion, is that all of those people, Patel, Vance, all of the others, fall in line after Trump makes his decision. When what we know, at least so far, from what this TikTok of like all of the details of this White House Situation Room meeting are, all of them knew this was going to be a disaster, told Trump it was going to be a disaster. Trump didn't care. Trump covered it up. Trump was dragged to kicking and screaming to screaming to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He goes all out. He opposed everything. He denied the obvious birthday letter. Look, we all knew it was real. Like, come on. And at the time, they knew it was real before they denied it. And then Bongino, of all honestly, probably the worst. Because internally he's screaming and he's losing his head, complaining about the millions of dollars in podcast revenue and how hard it is that he lost by going in the administration. Oh, boo-hoo. My heartbreaks for you. My heartbreaks for you, Dan. And how hard it is for to not live in Florida, probably. So he in the in the administration, he's threatening to quit and all that over this. He's screaming at the White House chief of staff, doesn't quit, and now comes back. He's on his show and he still defends his conduct from when he's in. So come on, Dan. So he lost all of his integrity. You know, cash Patel, a total joke, even though internally he, you know, tried to push back at least uh somewhat, Vance, all of these other guys, you know, who all were like, oh, it's going to be a disaster. And then they all have to come out phone lining to Ben Trump because Trump is the one who's either afraid or has covered some shit up. That's it. That's that's that. You cannot read this and not come away with the conclusion that if it were not for Trump himself, that every single other person basically who works for him was willing to go for maximum transparency and for release. And they knew it would be a huge political problem for them, and they ended up going with it anyways because of Trump. It's very similar to the Iran situation.

SPEAKER_12 1:44:31

Well, and there was a big divide between people who were in touch with the online universe and people who weren't, I mean, more or less a generational divide. But yeah, Bungino, Patel, and Vance were the three that are the most like internet-brained. And they were like, this is like, you guys don't get it. This is the problem. And you can't just brush it away with your normal tricks. But, you know, their sense was like, yes, he can. He gets away with everything. So why wouldn't he get away with this? And uh, you know, they were quite stunned that this continued to be an issue for the base, that this kept coming up in focus groups. And we can put um media did like uh, you know, most explosive revelations, blah, blah, blah, from this report. And um, they said they talked about how Trump berated Charlie Kirk over a like focus group that he had done. I don't remember if we covered that, but I know we covered some of the ones that he did like over the Iran war, but apparently Trump was furious that Charlie Kirk had done this. But of course, Charlie, being an online influencer himself, was very much in touch with the fact like, no, guys, this is this is a problem. This isn't something I can just gloss over and maintain any of my credibility. Um, the second one was Bangino going nuclear, overhandling the Epstein Files, which we just talked about. This is interesting too. JD Vance tried to broker a sit-down with Joe Rogan for Epstein Files cleanup. The original idea was that the then Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche would go on with Joe Rogan to talk about the files. Rogan apparently talked to Vance and was like, no, this according to JD Vance. No, I don't want him, but I would accept you to come on. And so JD tried to push himself to it's interesting to me. But it is interesting to me how central they saw Joe Rogan being to their like attempt to clean all of this up and like using him as sort of like, you know, how do we get the brosphere back on board? I know we'll go in with Joe Rogan, and then we can wonder what a total disaster all of this is. There was another media idea here that I really, really, really wish they had gone through with, which is that JD Mance pitched a Tucker Carlson interview with Glaine Maxwell on top of the administration. I don't know what he was thinking with that particular idea, but I really wish that that had ultimately happened. Of course, in the end, what they decided to do was Blanche himself interviewed Glaine Maxwell with every everyone just looked at what came out of that and rolled their eyes. And then immediately she gets moved. After she does that and says, oh no, Trump never did anything wrong. Then she gets moved to this minimum minimum security prison where she gets to wander the grounds with her puppy, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:09

So no, there's some, I mean, it's absolutely crazy. And the reason why I think it's very analogous to Iran is this is basically how the same thing played out with Iran. Most of the people who work for Trump were like, dude, this is bad. So I again, we know this for sure, at least from the TikTok too of uh uh Maggie Haverman and Jonathan Swan. They released the memos or basically about how it all went down inside the situation room. JD was like, I think it's a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I'll back you up. Pete Hegsath, idiot in chief, was like, look, whatever you want to do, you know, rah-rah, rah, I'll back you. He didn't really have an opinion. The chief of staff, uh, the army joint the joint chief, uh, but he came raisin cane, Daniel Kane, was like, look, sir, you know, very muted about some of the caution, but he had his vice admiral actually do tell him the truth. He was like, No, don't do it. It's gonna be bad. There's all these different problems. Trump listens to basically nobody uh inside of this in the administration in terms of the White House. He is listening to Mark Levin, to uh BB Netanyahu, to that extraordinary pitch that happened, probably in the same situation room, conference room as that we're talking about here. He goes with Netanyahu, he goes with the outside brigade. But in both cases, the deciding factor in all this is Trump himself. But the deciding factor is also that all of the people who work for him who know better, because they are not the president, they have to fall in line and to support and not support, just be their cheerleaders in the public to maintain any access to the gang. And that is the biggest problem, I think, yeah, with this entire administration.

SPEAKER_12 1:48:39

The other character in this is Pam Bondi. Oh my goodness. So you guys all remember the situation with the influencers and the binder, binder gate, where they, you know, kind of Rajik and all these people, DC Dorado are posing with their, oh, I got the Epstein files and their like big smiles on their face. Apparently, according to this, she freelanced that whole thing and was like, oh, her and her staff are like, oh, this is gonna be so epic. You'll see, this is gonna be amazing. It happened on a day when Keir Starmer was visiting and Trump was gonna have, you know, press a veil with him after that. And they're like, this is all the questions are gonna be about this. Like, what are you doing? And then, of course, as we all know, the binders turned on to be full of information that was already public. Actually, it was more redacted than what Gonker had published like a decade ago. And so it just ended up being a complete debacle. These influencers, who are some of the Trump White House's biggest cheerleaders, they feel like they get completely burned. It's humiliating for everyone involved, and no one falls for the theater. But apparently, this was all like her and her staff's bright idea, um, and just turns into a complete disaster on every front and further breaks the trust of, you know, um, some part of the MAGA base that is looking at this like, what are we doing here? Like you're just engaged in a massive. Massive in our face cover-up of what's going on. You mentioned when we were talking about Iran before, making the connection between these two issues that Trump just can't actually find his way out of. Both of them go to kind of like the core brand that he had created. And that's really why he can't wiggle out of it the way he seems to wiggle out of everything else. You know, being a womanizer and a woman abuser, frankly, is not really counter to his brand. Well, it's messy, but yeah, like that's baked into the cake. I get it. He's, you know, rude and crude and mean and gross and all these things. But when it comes to his own people, this brand that he'd established, that he would be the ruffian to come in and overturn the tables and clean up the swamp and expose all of the wrongdoers, this sort of very sort of like QAnon fantasy of what Trump was. The Epstein files just you could not reconcile. Now he's doing a cover-up, and by the way, he's Jeffrey Epstein's best friend for a decade, with this image and brand that he would create. You know, on the war stuff, like from the time that he ran in 2015, 2016, he made central to that his supposed opposition to the Iraq war. That becomes central to his brand. In the first administration, I would say he took very uh hawkish and potentially dangerous actions, but he always leaned into this talking point. I didn't start any new wars. When he runs, he goes out and has all of these validators of he's going to be the this is the peace ticket. He's going to keep us out of any future wars. You know, he's going to be totally different than these neocons that are in the Biden administration, blah, blah, blah. People believe that. And so then when he comes in and starts on his own, you know, of his own volition, with no provocation outside of Israel encouraging him to do so, a disastrous Middle Eastern war. There's just no way that you can wiggle out of that, that you can bullshit that. You cannot cover up the reality of how counter that is to what your people thought you were going to ultimately do.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:56

Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that between the Iran situation and the Epstein situation, again, though, what you I think you also have to be honest. Like, the truth is, is so many of these people took a gamble. They really did. And I believe that this would happen too. They believe that the first term, like with the first term, that the in the advisors, the people there would set policy. Trump has, for some reason, nobody will ever know, has taken a much more like active control over the policy in the second term, but with a way worse direction with Iran and with Epstein. And it turns out that they've had almost zero influence, to be honest, or counter-influence, both on Epstein. I mean, if you think about it, like, why did he pick JD in the first place? There's no reason, like, why? If you wanted to go this direction, pick Rubio or pick Doug Bergum or some other empty suit. Why would you pick somebody who actually, at least someone had like a belief system? Why did you do it? Because now it's seen as though as an internal like like keep the guy pissing out of the what is the LBJ quote? It's like, I'd better I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. It's like that's the only reason I can personally.

SPEAKER_12 1:52:59

I think it's because he was willing to go out and say, no, I would not have done what Mike Pence did on January. But they all said that. But no, he I mean, I think that was I think the fact that I actually think he liked the fact that JD Vance had been a critic and that he had been completely cowed because and that was willing even to go that far and say, no, no, I wouldn't have certified the election results. I mean, he he had already demonstrated his willingness to basically humiliate himself on behalf of the president. And I think that was the that was the critical piece. And then you've got Elon, who But it wasn't humiliating.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:32

He won the election, he became the vice president.

SPEAKER_12 1:53:34

It's humiliating to say that you would not have certified the election. I mean, any sort of principle, yes, any sort of principle that he had had previously, he had already demonstrated himself willing to completely and totally abandon. And then you add to that Elon Musk putting in a quarter of a billion dollars into the campaign, and JD was his pick. Like he wants him in. And I think that's how you end up with JD Vance in. I don't think it was as clever a strategic of like, oh, I'd rather have this guy on the inside. But you know, the bottom line is his learning from the first administration was that the problems were when he was reined in. That was the issue. He saw that as being the core problem in his first administration was that there was any check on anything that he wanted to do. And so between Project 2025 and then between his own vetting of who he would bring into his administration, he was going to make sure that it was all people who would just be yes men, who he could, you know, that he would have the final say, that there would be little to no check on what he wanted to do. And that is the primary difference in orientation between the first administration and the second one. He's also older, he's also more out of touch, you know, any sort of like political magic that he had previously, and he still has some of that, but a lot of that touch is gone because he's just been so disconnected from the American people for so long at this point, too.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:56

I'd have to think about it more because, you know, I I always thought I really, I really look, the Elon thing, I take your point. But one of the reasons that Elon and David pushed him, it had nothing to do with financial. There's no evidence currently that JD was some like driving doge force. As far as I know, I thought it was stupid. But uh, from what I can see currently, he picked him because of Elon was skeptical of Ukraine. That was one of the main reasons that David and Elon pushed him. Like there was a real idea. I take your point on the election thing. You're probably right that at the end of the day, it probably is the one-to-one thing. Like, if you're willing to say it that showed, uh, you're I just I have no idea why you would pick somebody who was young, who was in touch, who actually had a belief system on Ukraine, just to bring them in and then have I mean, uh like I said, I maybe it's a strategic thing, maybe it's a humiliation kink. Like, I have no idea. Yeah. Well, but I mean, clearly what I mean, he definitely likes that.

SPEAKER_12 1:55:44

I mean, even Marco, right? A little Marco, right? All these people, he loves the people who tried to stand up to him and then, you know, are completely cowed. Yeah, and he loves he loves the humiliation ritual. RFK Jr., I'm gonna make you eat McDonald's on my plane. I mean, truly, like he he enjoys that. And so I think that was actually part of the appeal for JD, but it has worked out that it has, you know, destroyed him and his ability to be like, you know, a posture as being anything different from what this the disaster that this administration has ended up being. And Trump doesn't even like him. Trump likes Makro better.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:17

So crazy. Yeah. Well, things it's uh interesting how things work out, isn't it? Okay. Uh, thank you to everybody who supports the show. We appreciate Friday's show tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be nuts uh with all this bombing. So we'll see you then.