4/13/26: Korea Flames Israel, Eric Swalwell Scandal, Norm Finkelstein On Iran War

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Turning now to Korea and to the Asian economies. As I said at the end of our interview with Rory, something very interesting is happening in Asia, a full, basically diplomatic break between Korea and Israel. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. Seemingly out of nowhere, the president of Korea quote tweeted a video which said, IDF soldiers tortured a Palestinian kid and threw him off a roof. They call themselves the most moral army. The president, again, literally out of nowhere, just says, I need to look into whether this is true and if so, what measures have been taken? The forced comfort women issue that we are raising is in no different than the Jewish massacre or wartime killing. So for those who aren't aware in Korean history, comfort women was a major issue and remains a major one for the Korean people for Japanese treatment of Korean women and effective like enslavement and sex slavery during the Second World War. It remains like one of the hottest issues between the two countries and has caused like major even diplomatic problems between them. But clearly they have a very raw wound from the Second World War and they're comparing the treatment and subjugation of Palestinians to how Israel is treating them. Now, the question though is that this video is from 2024. So why now? I think we know why because their economy has just been decimated and the president of South Korea is using, again, one of the most like sensitive issues in South Korean society to try to turn the people against Israel on this moral ground. Okay, so how does the Israeli foreign ministry respond? Let's put this up here on the screen. The remarks by the president of Korea, including this trivialization of the massacre of Jews on the eve of a Holocaust, remember in state of Israel, are unacceptable and warrant strong condemnation. President Lee for some strange reason chose to dig up a story from 2024 and to cite a fake account that falsely represented it as a current event. This account, remember, they're not denying any of this. Okay, let's say. Right, exactly. This account is notorious for spreading anti-Israeli disinformation and falsehood about Israel. The event discussed occurred during an operation against terrorists at a time when Israeli soldiers were facing direct and immediate threats to their lives. The event was thoroughly investigated and addressed two years ago. Yet we have not heard a single word from the president about the terrorists who were at the center of this event, nor have we heard a word from the president regarding the recent Iranian and Hezbollah military attacks against Israeli civilians. Mr. President is always better to check before reposting. Okay, so again, note. Seems like a confirmation of the veracity of the video. No, no, no. Right, but this is the quote. Why now? Why now? Well, again, they're fed up. They can't do this to Trump yet. They may get there if the blockade happens. But with Israel, who they see is one of the precipitators of this conflict, they're like, oh yeah, no, we're done with you. And we're just gonna, and this is a radical shift. They've had relations for many years. It hasn't necessarily always been on the best terms, but at the end of the day, Korea, they don't care that much about Israel. They're a major US of the ally. So if a US wants them to cozy up to Israel, so be it. It is what it is. But now, their entire population, remember what? You think we're a phone addicted society? They're very similar. They're all on social media. They have TikTok and all these other things in South Korea. So they've been watching the same Palestinian videos. So they've got the population. But then you have this war, which has plunged them into economic crises and chaos. Remember, right before all of this, Korea was about to dispatch its own special envoy. Let's put D4 up there on the screen. Their own special envoy appointed by their foreign minister directly to Iran to have bilateral talks with Iran. And basically, I mean, they didn't admit it, but I think they were just gonna pay the toll to get all of their oil out of those streets of Hormuz. They didn't care at this point. Their economy is so deeply reliant. Well, similarly, again, they're furious with Israel for their role in this war. And so they've actually ratcheted up this diplomatic incident. Let's put D3 up there on the screen. This is in response to Israel's response. It's disappointing that you don't even once reflect on the criticisms from people around the world who are suffering and struggling due to your relentless anti-human rights and anti-international law actions. When I am in pain, others feel that pain just as deeply. It's only natural to feel sorry if someone else is suffering because of my needs. It makes me deeply uncomfortable to watch this immense pain and national hardship suddenly befalling our innocent citizens out of the blue like a bolt from the blue. For the sake of universal human rights and the national interests of the Republic of Korea, I must work harder to find things I can do. Israel cannot tolerate President Lee's remark that wartime killings equal Jewish massacre. I mean, this, again, is extraordinary stuff from the president of South Korea, a allied nation whose entire economy was thrown into full chaos. They were already exploring bilateral negotiations, but I think it shows a couple of things. The Palestinian issue is the one that they can easily reach for. They know that it's sympathetic for their population, their linking, their own history. And it's also a deeply, not even not so subtle shot at the United States here. It's like, we're not taking orders from you. Whenever it comes to our relationship here with Israel anymore, which I think is very fascinating to watch this. I think that's highly significant. There's two things here. Number one, I mean, it's worth noting that, of course, at the height of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, they had nothing to say, but obviously the entire population of the world, effectively, has turned against Israel because of what they have seen and the horror that was perpetrated there. So now that Israel has been directly involved in the Iran war, which is plunging the entire world into economic chaos, which is directly damaging dramatically the South Korean economy, now they can use the moral issue of what the way you treat Palestinians to also push back against Israel at a time when South Koreans are obviously suffering. So there's that. And then the other piece is the US piece. The US has been shown to be relatively weak, weaker than expected. We were humiliated in a lot of ways. And so the threats from Trump and the fear of how he'll respond and that he'll have Israel's back and you can't break from them because they're our ally and you need to be on board with them no matter what they do, those threats are not as potent, especially again at a time when you have a genuine like national crisis in South Korea because of the energy crunch. So it's both a sign of just how furious they are with Israel and also a sign of comparative weakness from the US. There's a couple of other elements to this too. So the Gulf countries, remember South Korea because they've been under threat here from the North Koreans, they have a very robust and actually very good defense industry. So a lot of their arms and munitions have been backfilling a lot of the gaps of the US. So what's happened is that a lot of these Gulf countries are just reading this yesterday has been going out and buying a bunch of South Korean weapons, missile interceptors. They have a pretty robust, their own system, which as I understand it, they're quite sophisticated and they're much cheaper actually than many even US systems. So Israel though, maybe they were looking in the future to buy some South Korean weapons. I don't know if that's gonna happen now. And you also see South Korea with a little bit of its own leverage. They're like, oh, you Gulf countries, you guys want our weapons? Well, maybe we're gonna have to cut some deals here on the side. All of this is just displacement of US supremacy role in the region. This country, so I was just reading here, South Korea and Israel, they signed a free trade agreement like six years ago, right? So these are not nations with any real enmity. They have tech cooperation, COVID. I was looking for Gaza, they urged a ceasefire and humanitarianism, but they were very balanced. Like they didn't outward condemnation. This is by far one of the bigger incidents. Another thing when we keep our eye on Asia, I spotted this. Nationwide protests in Japan just a couple days ago, this was on Wednesday that were over 100 locations, over 50,000 people actually took to the streets. It wasn't just about the Iran war, but some of it was. Let's take a listen. Protests just outside Japan's parliament and there are thousands of people here. It's really rare to see a protest of this size in Tokyo. Protests were held across Japan in over 100 locations. They were planned before Iran and the US agreed to a two week ceasefire. Many showed up anyway though, fearing it won't last and that fighting could restart. The protesters here are also criticizing the Japanese prime minister, Senaitha Gaiji, and falling on Earth. I mean, look, I think it's interesting. Like she said, it's pretty rare. This was not just about Iran, it was also about their own constitution. So look, every nation has domestic politics. I'm not trying to say that it's all about this, but there are signs of interesting things and the Japanese prime minister, she's in a tough spot. Their government also, I mean, they had all these budget problems. I've been reading a little bit about the first budget that they had some 11 year, it's very similar to our Congress, but they're having issues with that. But Iran remains a single problem. They had a call this morning, I was looking, where they're urging diplomacy and reopening of the streets of Hormuz. Remember 70, almost 80% of their oil and South Korea very similarly. They also rely heavily on natural gas and then they have the same problems whenever it comes to jet fuel. All of this, I think, just demonstrates the way that this war is breaking apart, these alliances in Asia. And then it also opens the question about the naval blockade of the streets of Hormuz. Are we gonna board Chinese vessels? And if you're China, I mean, look, China's singular goal with Japan and South Korea has been to separate it from the United States. South Korea made its gamble during the THAAD situation where China threatened economic boycott and South Korea said, we gotta sit here and we gotta take the pain. We gotta keep these THAAD missiles here or in battery and the radar because at the end of the day, America's our guarantor of security. So even though we're gonna take a ton of pain, we gotta sit here and we gotta take it because it's good for us in the long run. How will we repay them by destroying their economy? Same with Japan. I mean, for them, they're like, look, we have this alliance, occupation and this painful history, but at the end of the day, like we have a deep consumer relationship, we're very, very tight. China, their sole goal is to cleave off South Korea, Japan from the US and to actually have them, basically have a reverse relationship where they're like, look, we're not gonna attack you, but you get access to our consumer market. So it looks like a more appealing pitch than it was in the past. Now, I'm not saying this is gonna happen overnight, but all these policymakers, they have to consider their own national interest. And right now, we're not in their national interest. We're actively hurting their national interest and it's showing up in all of these different ways. Yeah, and Israel is like an incredible world villain as are we increasingly at this point. Let's put D6 up on the screen. Tree to Parsey was talking about from the Israeli perspective what might happen or the way that Trump may approach negotiations moving forward. Netanyahu, we played for you last week, said the war's not over, they still are prepared to go back. They had this apparent coordinated leak to all three of the major Hebrew TV networks saying that they're gearing up for a renewed conflict with Iran. And so Trump is gonna face a real question. If he actually wants to end US direct involvement in a hot war with Iran, he's either going to have to constrain Israel or he's going to have to make it very clear, Israel, you are on your own. And if they're on their own, they're really pretty screwed. I mean, all right, their interceptor stockpiles are down to double digits. They've been incredibly dependent on the US Navy to protect them as much as they have been protected. And obviously the Iranian ability to penetrate those defenses and do damage inside of Israel has increased the longer that the war has gone on. So on the one hand, Israel looks like it's very strong. They've dominated Gaza, they're dominating the West Bank, they're taking over a part of Lebanon, although the Hezbollah resistance has been stronger than they thought. They finally got the US to do the war in Iran that they have long sought. But at the same time, the only reason, the only goodwill that they have in the world basically is among boomers in the US and the president of the United States. We are the only thing that stands between them and having to actually live within their means and act like a real state, live within their borders and come to some sort of an agreement with their neighbors or they won't exist anymore. So it's a very tenuous moment for Israel. There's a New York Times piece this morning that's talking about how Israelis are not feeling like this Iran war has gone very well. They're looking at this, they're like, we've been living in bomb shelters. There's certainly, we don't know exactly how much, there's certainly been significant damage within the country of Israel. And what do we have to show for it? Iran is probably, if anything, more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon. They're at missile stockpile, remains intact. There's been some damage done to it, but nobody's under any illusion that they won't be able to build back better, I suppose. And so they're asking themselves, what was this all for? Which is why so much of the domestic pressure is going to be on Netanyahu to go back to war, which is something he wants to do and very likely to drag us back in as he did before. I don't think it's out of the question and it's clearly to, I think for the rest of the world, like this just came across, let's talk about it a little bit. Prime Minister Netanyahu at a cabinet meeting, he says, I spoke yesterday with Vice President Vance, he called me from his plane, he reported to me in detail as this administration does every day. So I noted, I go, Netanyahu is openly, just being like the Vice President of the administration, report to me in detail every day. So you and I, what are we focusing on? To the guy who literally was raised near the city of Philadelphia. He speaks fluent English, I think he knows what report to me in detail every day means. So a bunch of these scientists are like, you idiot, they're in a war, of course they talk every day. I'm like, he didn't say talk. He said report to me in detail. What's the impression? He gives this language openly to the world and to Israel to say, I'm the dad, I'm in charge. He knows what he's doing. He didn't misspeak. I mean, look, let's give him credit. Like he, I think he chooses his words very carefully. He wants to humiliate the Vice President and the United States. With a shrewd political actor. We can give him that. He knows exactly what he's doing whenever he uses this type of language to say, and to say to his domestic audience, I'm still in charge. Oh, and just so you're all aware, his corruption trial miraculously was pushed two more months because of security and national concerns. So that means we have two months before you have to restart the war. It doesn't mean that it can't come any earlier, but Korea, Japan, Australia, the UK, France. I mean, it's not just, we're doing this about Asia. Just this morning, both the chief powers of NATO, military powers, Germany, Germany, France, and the UK are all like, we have nothing to do with this. We want nothing to do with your blockade. This all needs to end right now. We are destroying all of our alliances, and it does appear as if we're doing it on behalf of Israel. They can wake up and they can read too, and they're like, well, this is bizarre. This is weird. Why are you doing this? So we're shredding it, and it's not necessary. I'll take Korea any day of the week. And let's put D8 up on the screen because this matters, maybe not in terms of the political leaders, but in terms of global opinion. And as you said, should be about this infant child that was murdered by Israel in Lebanon while she was attending her father's funeral. And so these are the sorts of horrific, gut-wrenching headlines that continue to come out because of the insanely barbaric actions of Israel. So you are really dependent on these countries perceiving it to be in their national interest to back you because you've lost the global public. And we're not the only country where there are people who have really hardened in their opinions against Israel, where the political landscape is really shifting. We're the most important one because of how much support we provide them, and of course as the global former hegemon. But there are countries around the world where sentiment has hardened against Israel and continue to see these horrific headlines come out. And so any political leader, once they perceive it to be in their national interest to break from Israel as South Korea is perceiving that to be in their interest right now as they deal with economic fallout of the Iran war, they're going to do that because the population is already there. Yep, that's right. All right, let's get to the Swalwell, shall we? So we did wanna get a little bit of domestic politics in here with regard to California Democrat Eric Swalwell, who has now officially suspended his campaign for governor of California in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse and harassment. Can put his Twitter statement here up on the screen. He says, in short, I am suspending my campaign for governor to my family, staff, friends, and supporters. I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I've made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made, but that's my fight, not a campaigns. Now, I believe less than a week ago, he was denying even any inappropriate behavior with staffers, this seems to be acknowledgement at least of that, but continued denial of the criminal allegations that have been made against him. So let me go ahead and give you a little bit of the backstory here. So as you guys probably know, Eric Swalwell, he's a prominent member of the House Democratic Caucus, really has sort of come to prominence during the height of the Trump resistance in Trump 1.0. He close ally of leadership had a lot of endorsements from high profile Democratic leaders to support him in his race for governor in California. Bunch of other candidates in that race has been kind of a mess, we haven't covered it too much, but they have this jungle primary situation because there were so many other Democrats in the race. There was a possibility that you ended up with two Republicans who were the highest vote getters who ended up going through to November. But Swalwell was one of the top Democratic contenders in that race before now suspending his campaign. Now there have been rumors circulating on social media for a while that there was going to be some scandal that broke about him. And apparently there were a lot of rumors about him on Capitol Hill in general, rumors of the like, he cheats on his wife routinely with young staffer type variety. Allegedly. Allegedly, yes, although at that point, it seems like he's basically acknowledged that anyway. What came out though in the past several days is actual allegations of rape. And we can, let's go ahead and play a little bit of the woman who is making this particular allegation against Eric Swalwell. She was on CNN to tell her story. I decided to ask him to meet me for a drink. And I did this because I was so far removed from what had happened in 2019. I felt safe because I was established, I had a partner, I felt more secure that I could have a strictly professional relationship with this person. After that bar closed, we went to another. I went to the bathroom and I don't remember anything after that. You don't remember anything? I remember the next day, I can see flashes of that evening of him on top of me, me pushing him off, him grabbing me, it was a lot more aggressive. It was aggressive. Did you say no? Yes, I said no. I said, in my flash that I can recall, I was pushing him off of me saying no. And what did he do? He didn't stop. He didn't stop. And you woke up the next morning. I woke up the next morning, naked, alone in his hotel room. I, for a moment, didn't even know I was in his hotel room. That's how intoxicated I was. And I called my mom, the only person I could think that could help me. And so she alleges that something similar unfolded twice. Once when she was on his campaign or official staff, 24 years old, and then once several years later in the incident that you heard her describing there, there's another woman who's come for and can put this E4 CNN tear sheet up on the screen who describes a similar scenario of drinking with him becoming so intoxicated, apparently, that she doesn't remember anything. And again, wakes up in his hotel room. There are several, there are two other women who came forward with allegations where, it started off as some sort of professional contact. Very soon, it's, hey, let me have your Snapchat. Next thing you know, he's sending unsolicited pictures of his genitalia. So that is the sort of thing that is detailed in the CNN report. And also, if we put E3 up on the screen, I just wanna give a shout out to the San Francisco Chronicle who were the first to document this, the allegations of this ex-staffer that you saw in the CNN interview. And people should read this entire report. But there's significant contemporaneous documentation, including text messages that she sent to other people, including tests that she went in, she got tested for pregnancy and STDs after this alleged incident. So it's fairly damning in terms of the level of evidence that you have for these claims. Right, Swalwell denying it, saying the allegations are false and he will fight them. Let's take a listen. A lot has been said about me today through anonymous allegations. I thought it was important that you see and hear from me directly. These allegations of sexual assault are flat false. They are absolutely false. They did not happen. They have never happened. And I will fight them with everything that I have. They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the front winner candidate for governor in California. I do not suggest to you in any way that I'm perfect or that I'm a saint. I've certainly made mistakes and judgment in my past. But those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position. I also apologize to you if in any way you have doubted your support for me. But I think you know who I am. For over 20 years, I have served the public as a city councilman, as a member of Congress, and as a prosecutor who went to court on behalf of victims, particularly on behalf of sexual assault victims. That's who I am and have always been. This weekend, I'm gonna spend time with my family and friends. And I appreciate those who have reached out to me to show support. And I look forward to updating you very soon. Well, he did update us and it is campaign. So that's where things stand as of right now. I mean, the big kind of interesting question around this is what you flagged. Let's put E5 up there on the screen. It actually threatens this cascade of house expulsion votes. So I had no idea that he, for at least three of his house colleagues, so while it was a Democrat, there's others who are on the chopping block or Republicans, Crystal. And this could actually affect the overall majority and make it even tighter for Mike Johnson. Yeah, because he had Annapalena Luna, Liz and Fine, expelled him from the house. I mean, disgusting behavior. And I've come to shift, this is a longer conversation for a different day, but the Libs had a point when they said moral character does matter. I've come to agree with that. Now, where the line is, et cetera, is a different story, but if you are allegedly raping a woman who's passed down drunk, yeah, I think it's time for you to go. Go and deal, talk to your wife, be with your kids, figure out what the hell is going on with your life right now. In any case, he is not the only disgusting cretin in Congress. So Democrats are like, okay, let's expel Swalwell, but we're also gonna talk about, what's his name, Tony Gonzalez, who admitted to an affair with his davern. You see these text messages where he's pressuring her to send him news, pressuring, pressuring, then she later dies by suicide after the affair is revealed. There's another one, Charfilis, I'm not even familiar with this person, or the allegations McCormick was found guilty by the ethics committee on a litany of charges. Notably, she funneled $5 million in COVID relief funds through a congressional campaign. She has denied wrongdoing, but the ethics committee found her guilty there. You have another one, Mills under investigation by the ethics committee on a ray of allegations, including financial misconduct, campaign finance violations, and sexual misconduct, all of which he denies. That one, the details also extremely sorted. I think that's the dude Ryan was on Piers Morgan with and was like challenging him. He's like an expense contractor too. So yeah, you could have a series of votes on potential expulsions from the House. So we'll see where that goes. It's also possible that Swalwell, the heat and the pressure becomes so great that he just decides to resign his congressional seat here in the near term as well, because he's effectively, his staff have come out against him, all of his previous endorsers, including labor unions, including Ruben Gallego, who had previously said he was his best friend. And then he raises some questions there as well. I'm just saying there's weird pictures of the two of them on the backs of camels that are shirtless. Yeah. Anyway. Also Gallego's got to just saying, all right. There is some. There's a Google searchin. Exactly about the circumstances surrounding his divorce. The only thing I want to say, Chris, is it wasn't just liberals. He used to talk about moral character. We all threw it out. So I will join you in setting some moral standards, but some of the liberals may not like how far we're going to take it. So maybe we should bring back some very, some interesting moral codes and other things in our laws and qualification for public office. There's nobody who would love it, who is more than me. And it will include a drug test for a certain THC. All right. Let's go on. We've got Norm Finkelstein standing by. I, unfortunately, I have an appointment later on. So, and Norm, to be totally respectful all this time, Chris is going to do it. So I'll be on tomorrow with Emily, so tomorrow and Wednesday, and then what, you and I on Thursday. So that's a schedule as of right now. All right. Let's go and kick it to Norm. I don't want to keep him waiting. Joining us now for his analysis of how we ended up in the war with Iran is Norm Finkelstein. He is an activist. He's an academic and he is an author of many books, including the forthcoming book, Gaza Gravediggers. Great to see you, Norman. Thank you for having me. Yeah, of course. So first off the top, you know, what is your sense of where we are in this war? We had these purported negotiations. They seem to have fallen apart, although neither side has completely closed the door to further talk. So what do you think is going on here? I don't claim any special knowledge in this area. I can only speak as a generally knowledgeable layperson. I think that President Trump has three burdens at this point. The war began with the overwhelming majority of American people believing it was an unnecessary war. That then, a second factor came into play. It proved to be an economically onerous war, an expensive war for the American people. And then number three, which became clear last week, it was an unwinnable war. Even threatening the annihilation of Iranian civilization didn't get the Iranians to budge on their basic issues. So with those three factors, unnecessary, unwinnable, and progressively incrementally more expensive, it doesn't seem that Trump, in my opinion, and I've heard other opinions from people whom I respect, but I don't believe he can start up the war again at the magnitude that it was before. That there may be local, so to speak, and probably it's the wrong word, but local skirmishes, yes, and that they may go on for a protracted period of time. Yes, but even there with the caveat that unless the straits of hormones are opened, the economic burdens will just progressively increase. So I don't believe contrary, as I said, to listening to other commentators, I don't think war is an option for President Trump at this point. As to where it will go, I can say, but war is not an option. I would also want to add to that the what you might call idiosyncratic or eccentric aspect, which is President Trump has no mental discipline. He doesn't have physical stamina to focus on one issue, mental or physical stamina to focus on any one global issue at a time. He moves on, he moves from one crisis to another. He's basically what you might describe as a human wrecking bull. He's an agent of chaos and he thrives on the chaos, but you can't, I think he's learned that you can't win this time by just heaving the wrecking bull and then moving on, that's not going to happen. He already had one takedown with Greenland. He had another takedown, which I think important lessons can be learned from, but unfortunately, it's left us behind. He had another takedown in Minnesota and this is a takedown obviously. It falls in the same trajectory, but it's a takedown of a much higher magnitude. So let me ask you then, let's take your analysis and say, okay, Trump is not going to go back to full war because he's realized this is just complete and utter disaster for him, there's no winning it. Where does that then leave Israel? What does their calculation look like from that? There are two, you could say two schools of thought on that. One school of thought is that Israel will play the spoiler that it will do everything it can to provoke. There could be false flag operations by Israel. You can't put it past them. So it will do everything in its power to force Trump to react on a catastrophic level. So there's the possibility of a overt or covert, more likely covert provocation or sequence of provocations by Israel. The second school of thought is when Trump decides to say no, it's no. We already know that's possible because you may remember way back when, for various reasons, some say is because he wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Others said that in my opinion, he wanted to negotiate a deal with Saudi Arabia, but we know he said Gaza, at least in its overt, most barbaric manifestation, it had to stop. Now it obviously didn't stop. And you could say now it's a slow motion genocide, but it was something changed. And it was against Netanyahu's will. Trump just picked up the phone and said it's over. And as I say, in its most barbaric manifestation, it was over. So the other school is that Trump will simply pick up the phone and tell Mr. Netanyahu time to end it. And there were already indications of that. I don't claim to be a prophet, a soothsayer, but I said a few days ago that I think Trump is going to give Netanyahu maybe 48 hours to execute his blood, give vent to his bloodlust, and then tell him show is over. And I guess the day after I said that there were reports of Trump saying you have to dial back what you're doing in Lebanon. So I think those are the two possibilities, but I don't believe in the third possibility. The third possibility is Israel is out of control and the US can't do anything that I find completely, it's not just far fetched, but it's so in conflict with what the facts on the ground, so to speak, show. Israel doesn't have that kind of independence. That's just completely, in my opinion, it's completely ridiculous. All Trump has to say is do as you want, but count me out. And the show is over. Could you imagine if just Trump said, well, you do what you want, but at the security council, we're not going to veto a resolution. If it comes up to calling you to stop in Lebanon, we're not going to veto. Yeah, or even we're not going to use our ships to help intercept the Iranian missiles that will target you because they're reportedly down to double digits in terms of their own interceptors and very dependent on us for protection at this point. Let me get your reaction to some of the analysis of Tucker Carlson, who has been very critical of Trump and very much in the camp of Israel will undermine and that Trump will go along because in his words, in this clip he says Trump is a quote slave to Israel and might be getting blackmailed by Netanyahu. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of that. Is very easy to understand and you would have to be either not very bright or under immense pressure from another country in order to start a war like this. And the latter is true. We did this because of pressure from Israel. Now, how exactly did they exert that pressure? That's not entirely clear, but we're going to have to find out. I think we have an obligation to find out because we can't be a sovereign country under these circumstances and we're not a sovereign country at this point. And obviously Donald Trump would push right back on that. And you have been, until now really, a huge supporter of his. He wanted him elected obviously for a second term. Have you completely fallen out with him over this war then? Well, I haven't fallen out with him. I mean, I've known him for decades. I've always liked him. And I think anyone who spent time with him likes him. I feel sorry for him as I do for all slaves. He is not free in this moment at all to do what he thinks is best for himself or his country. What do you mean? No, he's, well, he's not free. And we learned that yesterday when Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, clearly with relief and made its terms or most of its terms public. And then that ceasefire ended within two hours because Israel intentionally violated the terms by attacking not just Southern Lebanon, but the city of Beirut. So are you saying he's a slave to Benyem and Netanyahu? So I don't think it's as simple as he's under the control of Netanyahu. But you could summarize it that way and you wouldn't be totally inaccurate. And again, we know this because the single biggest mistake Trump or any American president in my lifetime has made was going to war with Iran in an effort to change its regime. It didn't work. It was obviously a mistake immediately. He understood. Trump understood it was a mistake immediately. And he tried to get out of it this week and announced we were getting out of it and the Israelis prevented us from getting out of it. So that's the clear as possible example. Right. They didn't allow it. Therefore they're in charge. So let me get to your reaction to that. And a couple of key points he says, effectively Trump is a slave to Israel that we are no longer a sovereign nation and suggests Trump may be blackmailed by Israel as well. What's the evidence? I feel like we're back to the famous line by Donald Rumsfeld during the Iraq war or the buildup to the Iraq war. There are known knowns. And there are unknown unknowns. And I feel we're here back to the same kind of argument. Mr. Carlson makes a rather large claim that the president of the most powerful country economically and militarily, the president of the United States is a slave of a country the size of New Jersey with a population of 10 million, whatever it is now and whether or not you include the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Well, that's a very large claim on its face. So now what's the evidence? There are two pieces of evidence as I see it that has to say professor that Tucker Carlson presents that he adduces. One piece of evidence is that Israel might be blackmailing him. Yes, it's true. They might be blackmailing him and they might not be blackmailing him because we have no idea. There's no evidence. Now, so we can discard that not that it's necessarily false, but there's no basis for it. So then that leaves us with a second argument that the war was that President Trump is not an idiot. There I think you would need evidence to support that claim, but let's leave that aside. That President Trump is not an idiot. So he had to have seen that this war was going to be a disaster because he's not an idiot and he had to have seen the war was going to be a disaster. Then he must have been acting at Israel's behest, Israel's win. So let's examine those three propositions. Number one, he's not an idiot. Well, I won't say he's a complete idiot, but certainly in a large number of areas where he renders opinions, he is an imbecile. Maybe it came to whether or not he should purchase a new building in my neighborhood. His advice would be quite useful, but by the way, his father started in my neighborhood, Fred Trump, the Trump buildings are still up in my neighborhood, County Island. He was in the torvious racist, Woody Guthrie, the folk singer, actually wrote a song about Fred Trump, but we'll leave that aside. So if you want real estate advice, I suppose his would be as good as anybody else's on the matter, but there are a broad number of areas where we can say he's completely and happily ignorant. Ignorance is bliss and he's blissfully ignorant. Proposition number two, let's assume he was very bright for argument's sake, let's assume he was very bright. Hey, you wanna know what? Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were very bright. Very smart, top of the line. Rich in government experience. When they entered the Bush administration, they had already been involved in government for about, since the Nixon administration. So they had been involved already for about 30 years in government. They knew government upside down. And beyond that, and already that's a very robust fact, beyond that, they had staffed their whole national security establishment with very smart guys. Douglas Fife, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, top of the line. I'm not saying I like them, but credit given, we're credit too. I've said that many times, we shouldn't underestimate our enemies. You're very smart. Now here's the thing, why am I mentioning it? If you go back and read the record, they all thought Iraq would be a cakewalk. That's the expression they used. They all thought, as you remember, within weeks or months, President Bush was standing in an aircraft carrier with the words emblazoned on back mission accomplished. So guess what? Very smart people, of whom I would not include Trump, but even if I did, very smart people can get it wrong. They got it wrong. Vinton Johnson, I'm old enough to remember the war in Vietnam. Every few months, he would say, I see light at the end of the tunnel. That was the famous line. I see light at the end of the tunnel. Now Johnson was a very impolitics, politics, a very shrewd guy. His administration, you know what they called his administration? They were called the best and the brightest. And they really were. They were what you call, were called back then, the Whiz kids, people like Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. They were the type who got 1600 under SATs and who went to the top schools and had extremely high levels of confidence and conscientiousness. They got it wrong about Vietnam. So even if you are very smart, which Trump is not, but even if you are, you can get it wrong. And we have, for those who care to remember, and it's not that long ago, though I have to acknowledge time has passed. It is 23 years ago. I remember the day the war was declared. I was at a demonstration. It was in March and it was very cold. I was in Chicago then. They got it wrong. Now, Tucker Carlson says there's only one explanation, Israel. I think there's a very simple, I don't want to say simple, but I think there's a very plausible alternative explanation. Everybody knows that Trump has an oversized ego. Everybody knows Trump enjoys the patching tree of the office. Everybody knows that Trump doesn't very much care about the issues in and of themselves. He likes to flex his muscle. He likes to stride the globe like a giant. And at that point, after the successes he scored in Gaza, so much of his success that he thought he would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for it, I should say apparent success, because the genocide, as I said, is a slow-motion genocide, but it continues. And then what you might call using biblical language, the Immaculate Coup in Venezuela, and then into that situation, there was a informational void around the president, because he knew all of his appointees were sub-mediocre yes men. In fact, that's why he appointed them. Of course, they were sub-mediocre yes men. He wanted people who could never make him look, you know, pale by sight of them. I actually think he was not happy with those pictures of JD Vance walking erect up the staircase, because he's always trying to outshine me. I mean, that's how Trump thinks. He's a child. He's a child. So there was an informational void, because he was surrounded not with, as Lyndon Johnson, the best and the brightest, not as with George Bush Jr, Cheney Rumsfeld, and the lustrous Neal conservatives, very smart guys, very smart guys. Um, he was surrounded with Jared Kushner, Steve Woodcuff, Pete Hexeth. You know, Pete Hexeth, he has more oil running through the strands of his hair than oil passing through the strides of Hormuz on any one week. These are preposterous figures, preposterous figures. True, and to your point intentionally so. Intentionally so, and so arrogant. You know, Jared Kushner stands there erect in his Ralph Lauren suit, as if he's tally-rand, as if he's Neto-nic. I mean, this guy, this guy gives affirmative action a bad name. No, really, he gives affirmative action a bad name. If he doesn't have a bad name enough, he gives it the worst name. Every step in his life has just been bought by his father. I mean, his father was such a crook. No, you really, this is extraordinary fact. His father was Jewish, obviously, and a billionaire, much richer than Trump, by the way. They were both real estate developers, much richer than Trump. And Chris Christie got him convicted and thrown into jail. Now you have to be a crooks crook to be a Jewish billionaire in New Jersey and get thrown into jail. How did Jared get into Harvard? I suppose you know, but for the sake of your listeners, he got into Harvard because his father gave Harvard $2.5 million that year. There was no issue about that. When they went back and they asked his teachers, the guidance counselors, they all said the same thing. He didn't have the grade, he didn't have the test scores to get into Harvard. It was all bought. He's just white, in the most crude sense, white male privilege, but white billionaire. White male, wealthy privilege, yes. Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this to play devil's advocate here. I want to complete the thought. Go ahead. So there was an informational void. And that's where Netanyahu stepped in to fill the void. He told Trump, it's going to be a pushover. There were those demonstrations in Iran. It's falling apart. Iran, the Mullahs are standing on the precipice, a little jolt, and they'll fall over. We have all our agents in Iran, they're everywhere, and they're ready to organize regime change. And if it happens, you will go down in history as the greatest statesman to have ever occupied the White House, he soups them up. Yep. That's a factor that Tucker Carlson leaves out. This president is obviously very susceptible to being souped up and is ready to be fooled because it feeds his ego, the prospects that have opened up, especially after Venezuela. And Trump's commitment to the national interest, as you might call it, as they perceive it, it's balanced significantly by his own ego. The national interest is there, in my opinion, for sure. But his own ego looms as large and sometimes larger than the national interest. So I think there's a very simple explanation. You know, Axe-Sams-Razer, the simplest explanation is often the right one. We don't have to go to conspiracy theories. We don't have to go to other explanations, the Adelson's and this and that. I think the explanation based on Trump's conduct, his instincts, and in particular, in the double sense, his impulses, explain what happened. Well, and that would explain why he decided to do this war, even though other presidents, which have also been antagonistic towards Iran and have had pressure from Israel to go to war, why they decided not to because of the unique interplay of his sort of narcissism and egoism. And as you've said in other interviews, the way he has personalized the presidency. But let me just play devil's advocate. Let me just add one thing. The sake of your listeners, because I know you know, not so long ago, we did try Iran. We tried, the goal of the Cheney-Rumsell administration was Iraq, Syria, Iran. There was a consensus among everybody in the Bush administration that Iran had to be dethroned. There had to be, I hate that expression, but a regime change in Iran. They just thought it would be the third step along the way. But back then, there was a consensus in the Bush administration that we were going to go to war with Iran. It was just not this moment. We first went to a weekend Iraq or overthrow Iraq and Syria. So when you say previous administrations didn't try it, well, actually they were getting in. They started with Iraq. Dropside News did some polling and found that a majority of Americans believe that covering up the Epstein files was at least part of the motivation for going to war in Iran. And so the argument would basically be, look, we know Israel does these blackmail operations. That's certainly unteniable. There's some reporting to suggest that they use the Lewinsky situation with Bill Clinton to try to co-horse him in terms of negotiations that were ongoing at that time. So we know that there's certainly not above it, right? Then you have this, the Epstein files partially revealed and Trump's name throughout them. And we know that he was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein for over a decade. So isn't it reasonable to put two and two together and say, Israel may have something on him or Trump may think that Israel has something on him that is damaging enough that it provides them some leverage to further push him in this direction beyond what is, what he perceives as the national interest and what he perceives as his potential for military glory and great man historical impact. This reminds me of the saying, if grandma had wheels, she'd be a baby carriage. There are just too many ifs here. I'm not sure I've heard that one before. Okay, many is from my generation, which is many generations past yours. There's just no evidence for it. It's possible, many things are possible. I can give you an infinite regression of possible scenarios. I have to say that, and here, well, I'll be serious, although I try to be serious, though not grave, I like seriousness with an element of humor. There's a real problem with the current generation. It's rife in ways I believe unprecedented in my lifetime. It's rife with conspiracy theories about everything. I was yesterday talking to a fellow on the boardwalk of Coney Island. I was going on my walk and we're having a conversation. He knew me by reputation, public reputation. And at some point he says, what do you think of the Luminati? What do you think about the Masons? And I tried very patiently and not patronizingly to say, I don't think we have to go there to try to explain what's going on in the world. Now, I get very angry emails from people who are irate, that I don't believe the Israelis killed John F. Kennedy. That's become a new thing. I want to emphasize a new thing. There's always been speculation about who killed the JFK. And I checked it yesterday. I was curious because I myself have been a very curious person today, I was curious because I myself was one of those who killed JFK sleuths. If you Google, you'll find that there were approximately one to 2,000 books written on the Kennedy assassination. Wow. And if you factor in periphery books which touch in the periphery of this assassination, the number goes up, believe it or not, Christo, to 40,000. Wow. Yes. I did not read all of them. I did not read nearly all of them. But for a youngster, when Kennedy was killed, I was in fifth grade. I read many of them. I was curious. The most famous, which was in the best times, bestseller list, if I believe for quite a long time, in the bestseller list, then something, now it's nothing, it's just you purchase your name on it, was Mark Lane's Rush to Judgment. There was Harold Weisberg's Whitewash. I remember the titles, I read them. And I was convinced, it was a cover up. But here's the thing. You can go through those 2,000 titles, one to 2,000. You can go through the 40,000. Israel will never appear there. It was not even an issue. It suddenly became, because I think there are two reasons to this, number one, as you know, because you're a podcaster and you struggle to, like in roller derby, elbowing to get to the head of the pack, you realize that there is nobody on the left in the upper tier of the podcast world. The closest you get is somebody like Mehdi Hassan, who's not really a person of the left and probably wouldn't even describe himself as a person of the left. The big names are Elon Musk, I was surprised, Jackson Henkel, of course, Tandace Owens, you know the list. And these kinds of conspiracy analyses, they are a hallmark of the right wing. The left always prided itself on what a quote, for better or for worse, maybe it's a cliche, a historical materialist analysis, that's what we used to call it, a historical materialist analysis, that's gone. You just have, and if this and if that, and if this, and if you put, I can't tell you the kinds of emails I'm getting from people who are so angry at me for saying, Israel didn't, look, I don't think Israel killed Lincoln. I don't, I just go. You're gonna get some angry emails about that one too? Yes, now I will get the thread of ink, why did I say that? And so there's that, the fact that the right wing dominates the web right now, and there is no, in the upper tier, there is no rational historical quote unquote, a materialist podcasters out there at that level, at that level. And the other thing is your generation, and I'm not one of them who's, I'm not one of those disposed to be excessively critical of your generation and the generation after yours. I find my students to be very morally serious, probably more so than my generation, and I find they're not minds to be very nimble. So there's no problem there. The problem is the lack of practical skills, reading skills, the lack of mental discipline to sit through a full book, and the lack of a historical sense. For me, it's a subject of curiosity that when I was a young man, a person of the left, when we met people from the 1930s, the great anti-fascist and socialist movements in the United States, Communist Party, Socialist Party, and so forth, we were brimming with curiosity. What was it like, what was it like to be in a Communist Party? What was it like to organize the steelworkers, organize the miners? Those were herculean world historic tasks and victories. I don't think I've ever met anyone who asked me a single question about, well, the anti-Vietnam War movement was like, the only thing your generation, people on the left who call themselves on the left, I don't believe they are in most cases, but the only thing they like is the Black Panthers, because it's so telegenic, the beret, the shawls, the leather coats, it's all theater, but the concrete work of transforming our society in significant ways with the civil rights movement, the people in SNCC who most, your listeners, I'm supposed, I don't wanna be too presumptuous, people like Bob Moses. I mean, these people were really very impressive figures. Nobody knows. So in this historical vacuum, it's not surprising that these theories would come in. Anybody who lived through the Iraq War, which is, they said, okay, it's not yesterday, but it's 23 years ago, it's just everything old is new again. Every phrase, regime change, mad moolas, cakewalk, I was rereading a chapter I wrote in the book on the subject and that was drunk. How was all the same? Nobody needed to, well, I should say, there were conspiracy theories that it was Israel that dragged us into the Iraq War in 2003, but I don't believe there's any evidence for that. And I've read everything there is in the subject. I really have. There's no evidence for it. I won't run through it now if you care to ask me, I will, but there's no evidence. So I think that that's a real problem. When you give me a question, you say, well, if this and if that and if this and if that, and then you said, well, then if two and two make four, I didn't see one two, let alone two twos, and I don't know where you got four from. All I got was this wild speculation about, well, if Jeff Epstein was a pervert, and if he had dirt and all these other guys, and if he knew Donald Trump, and if Donald Trump, there's no evidence. Well, the thing that frustrates me is- It writes me why the fact is leading to the Iraq war. Why didn't you mention Jeff Epstein? Well, there's a simple reason why. I don't see any evidence yet. And you could say, well, that's the only plausible explanation. Okay, that's it. But there are a lot of very simple explanations. Yeah, and I think that's the most important part of your analysis, because what frustrates me is all Israel's fault in terms of the Iran war. Is it, look, obviously everyone is acknowledging here that Israel has their own goals. They've wanted us to get in the war with Iran. There's no doubt about that, that Netanyahu is trying to persuade Trump, et cetera. But number one, it deprives Trump of agency, makes him like he's just some puppet who has no autonomy or no choice. And it also ignores the fact, the interest of US empire, and the fact that as you rightly point out, every president has effectively been adversarial towards Iran. You did have the JCPOA under Obama. That was a different approach. I think it was one of the best accomplishments he had in his presidency, but it was immediately ripped up by Trump. And then Biden with Blinken chose not to get back in. So I think those points are extremely important and well said. Norm, it's always great speaking with you. We'll have to set a date for another interview where we talk about the anti-war movement in Vietnam and what that was like and what worked most effectively, because I think those lessons from the past would in fact be very valuable for today. But it's always great to see you, Norm. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. All right, that does it for us here today. Thank you guys as always for watching. Sagar and Emily will be on tomorrow, so they will see you then. This is an I Heart podcast.