Shawn Ryan & Palantir Co-Founder Debate the War in Iran

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Iran.

[00:00:01]>> Yeah, >> I'm against this.

[00:00:03]>> You're against You're against doing anything in Iran?

[00:00:05]>> I am.

[00:00:06]>> I want I I want I want I want to talk to you about this. So, let's let's do the counterfactual. So So So you agree the US Navy was created to fight the back against jihadist in the 1780s? Like they've been a problem for 200 years, right? First of all, >> okay, >> first of all, >> so I mean the reason we created the US Navy was because basically like you had uh you had Islamic forces around the Mediterranean that had been kidnapping uh originally, you know, tens of millions of Europeans. Basically, there were there were millions of European women who were who were sex slaves to these people over over several hundred years. This had been a thing they had always done since the foundation of Islam. It's in the Quran. You're allowed to do it to non-Muslim women. And when when our ambassador goes and says, "Listen, we're we're a new independent country. We're not fighting with you. We have nothing to do with this. We're just having trading ships there. Why are you taking our sailors? Like, we have nothing to do with you." By the way, there's no Israel. There's none of that [ __ ] [ __ ] And you know what they say? They say, "It's our right as a superior group. We're the Muslims and and we're going to take them. It's our right cuz you're you're not you're not you're not Muslim." And so, we have a right to take you and to take what we want. And that that and that is what our holy book tells us like this is this is and this is this conversation. So you look at any American founder the first 30 40 years of this country they're like these guys are [ __ ] crazy. It's a terrible it's a terrible thing.

[00:01:21]>> And and we actually literally created the Navy and we went and we fought back and we [ __ ] bombed their cities. We attacked their cities. We went after the we went after the Barbar pirates. We went after the core empires there that were doing this to us. We beat the [ __ ] out of them. And it was the right thing to do cuz they were stealing thousands of our soldiers or thousands of our sailors. You would can't let him get away with that, right? So, first of all, it was it was right to do that. I'd assume you'd say based on what I said like 200 years ago, obviously, right?

[00:01:47]>> And so, so listen today what it is. So, you get this you get you got a relatively modern country like conquered and raped by this crazy theocracy. Same exact type of guys as 200 years ago.

[00:01:58]These are these are these are guys that are that are taking what they want, raping, killing. You I'm I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure you've seen >> Joe. You don't have to tell me about how you breathe. You breathe their evil.

[00:02:08]Okay.

[00:02:09]So they've killed more of my [ __ ] friends than probably anybody else.

[00:02:16]>> They [ __ ] hung dudes off bridges.

[00:02:18]>> They're doing and they're spreading their They're spreading their money to to Venezuela. We caught them building things there. We caught them building things all around Africa. Obviously they destroyed the Christian country of Lebanon. They're doing all sorts of other bad stuff. Now we know, thanks to this war, by the way, we now know they were lying. They did have missiles they were building. They could go 4,000 km.

[00:02:34]So they're going to have basically crazy jihadis. We know they're building nukes at this point. They had 11 bombs they were going to have. That was their starting point in their negotiations. We have materials for 11 bombs. So Jared and Wickoff. So So Jared and Wickoff are sitting there. This administration is sitting there being told we have 11 bombs. You can't get rid of uh that that's where we are. And now we now know that that they could hold all of Europe hostage and they're obviously working to make that go to the US. They obviously could could go to Dioria. So we now know they could hold. So do you really want the So you do nothing for 10 20 years.

[00:03:02]You you have like a tons of nukes. You have missiles that can go to every western city and you have crazy jihadis who don't care if they die in battle as long as they can destroy their death to America pledge because they're so obsessed with it. This is not this death America existed long before any of this any of the stuff in the modern age of Israel. So so that that's the counterfactual 20 years from now our kids our our children are in a world where it's the nuclear armed guys with crazy missiles with whatever else AI and China stuff they have that they've now used. By the way, we're way ahead of them right now in AI. Way [ __ ] ahead of them in AI. We are not necessarily going to be way ahead of them in 20 years. I don't know where we're going to be, but right now there's a giant gap.

[00:03:37]Like we are way ahead of them. So it's like it's like we can move now when we're way ahead and they can hurt us this much or we could wait till God knows what happens when they're nuclear energy hoties that can threaten anywhere in the west. I mean the thing is I I 100% agree. It's like risky and dangerous and and and tough to act. It's very scary. I think it's much scarier just to let it go for 10 20 years with these [ __ ] That's my point of view.

[00:03:59]>> Yeah. I mean, I just I haven't I've not been presented with any proof that they have those type of weapons, and I haven't I haven't even seen proof that uh the whatever the missile is that they they launched is from them.

[00:04:15]>> You think you think there's a false flag launched from Iran?

[00:04:18]>> I have no [ __ ] I did not say that. I just said there there hasn't been any proof >> and and it's getting hard it's just getting hard to believe the administration. I mean, there's been a lot of bait and switches that have happened within a lot of different areas. I mean, uh, the the, for example, the interview I I threw out yesterday was about glyphosate and all the cancer it's causing. And, you know, I mean, you're familiar with the Maha movement. It was, you know, make America healthy again and we're gonna get rid of all this [ __ ] And then they just [ __ ] declared a national security concern for if we don't give the the pesticide companies immunity, glyphosate. And they called it Yeah.

[00:05:01]They called it a what? A national security uh concern. Well, for example, Iowa has the the the most cancer cases out of every state in the [ __ ] USA.

[00:05:16]You know who uses the most glyphosate?

[00:05:17]>> Yeah. Obviously the corn for the corn there in Iowa.

[00:05:20]>> 618,000 people died of cancer last year in the US.

[00:05:24]>> Why are we giving them immunity?

[00:05:26]Anyways, that's just one example.

[00:05:27]>> Yeah. No, listen. I think I think that that's a particular one where I think there should be more open debate from the administration on it and discussion of it. I think I I I listen I know Rick Rollins for a long time in the policy world. I think she's a really smart lady. She did some really impressive things fighting the left in Texas when she ran TPPF. She's now the agricultural secretary. That's her call. Uh, you know, I I think it'd be great to You should get her on the show. I can invite her. I can text her if you want. Let's see what she says, you know? No, I'm serious. I'm serious. Why not? Like, I don't know. I feel like I feel like I feel like she'd have a lot of respect for a lot of things you do and a lot of things you've done in your service. So, I I think that's a fair debate. I'm not an expert on that one, but I think we should be debating it openly, and I'd love to hear the smartest people on both sides. And and and I think if they're if they're just ignoring it when so many people believe as you do, that's not appropriate. So, let's let's engage on it. That'd be what I say. That was that was uh I didn't mean to dive into that.

[00:06:17]>> No, that's fair. That's fair. But you're saying you don't trust you're saying you don't trust someone from when when I saw the release of the Epstein Files and how that got butchered and how it continues to get butchered. That [ __ ] really pissed me off, man.

[00:06:30]>> And then, you know, >> and and by I never met the guy. I agree.

[00:06:34]He was a slime ball who seemed to know everyone cuz he was really good at networking and meeting people and tricking them to meet him. Mhm.

[00:06:40]>> I don't think everyone involved was like messing with kids. Like I know >> I don't either.

[00:06:44]>> Yeah. Right. So a lot of people just like >> But I think it's pretty obvious that some people involved were mess.

[00:06:48]>> I think some people were very at the very least a lot of people were messing with 21 and 22 year old girls. And I think some of them might have been underage and I don't know cuz I was I never met the guy and he was a bad guy.

[00:06:57]But these other people I I I just I just don't know. But I'm actually I'm curious like what what should they do on it to rebuild trust there? Actually that's a that's a tough that's a that's one I don't really follow at all.

[00:07:06]>> What should they do to rebuild trust?

[00:07:08]>> Yeah. Yeah. How do we be transparent?

[00:07:09]That's I think that's all anybody wants is just transparency and they want to see, you know, I mean, we we we we just we heard it over and over again. We're going to go after these people. We haven't seen >> we've heard about voting fraud. We haven't heard [ __ ] all about >> that. I agree. Why is the DOJ right now and the FBI are both really hurting the reputation of this administration?

[00:07:28]Because they're not going after and getting enough arrests right now and getting enough cases. I think that I think that is 100% true. I I you know I I listen I was talking to our friends there who are focused on fraud. There's a ton of fraud. We're helping them find.

[00:07:40]This is my I'm obsessed with this issue.

[00:07:41]I think there's way more fraud in this country than anyone realizes. We have to start making more charges and arrests and it's like it's like way too slow.

[00:07:48]Like someone and I don't know they can't find the right people to run it. It's embarrassing. That that part pisses me off.

[00:07:53]>> Yeah. So anyways, it's just all these things that have happened that I'm I'm just I've lost a lot of trust. And >> you shouldn't trust You shouldn't trust the bad guys running Iran either. That you also agree.

[00:08:02]>> I don't trust the bad guys running Iran.

[00:08:04]And I do I don't necessarily think I would be against the war in Iran >> if they presented it to you.

[00:08:10]>> If they presented it to me in a different way, but >> you know, like all the stuff you're saying, yes, it's true. Yes, it's my [ __ ] friends that died over there. I saw it. They're my friends. You know, I don't want to send my [ __ ] kid back over there to die, >> you know, for any of this [ __ ] >> Yeah.

[00:08:27]>> I mean, we spent over 20 [ __ ] years.

[00:08:29]>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the way Afghanistan was run was just is just just a travesty. We wasted trillions of dollars and everyone should be pissed off about it. And so I think that has created distrust that is fair to to exist. There should be distrust after the we wasted all his lives and all this money with like with not real clar. So I 100% agree with with that perspective. I you know I actually so I have some mentors who ran uh British intelligence 20 30 years ago and I know these guys still pretty well because they're obvious with Palunteer. We got to know a bunch of them. They thought we were kind of like a Aboriginal species they're visiting in Silicon Valley versus like MI6, right? These guys these guys are cool and and and and a couple of them have told me that they thought that a lot of uh the stuff that got us to go into Iraq cuz we kind of already wanted to go into Iraq obviously, but they thought some of the stuff some of the evidence like including from Chalabi who was an Iranian spy like purposely came from Iran even at that time. And what's interesting is even at that time in my understanding I went back and looked at it like the a lot of the top voices out of like our ally at Israel were saying Iran's the big problem not Iraq. So a lot of people are saying oh we fought Iraq for Israel. I I I I don't think that's the case. I think in that particular instance like Iran was very clever in getting us to focus more on Iraq. And even back then I think they were the bad guys. So >> for for what it's worth that's that you know I think they're clearly the worst.

[00:09:46]And I'm very happy a lot of them are dead. But I I I 100% I understand where you're coming from, not wanting to trust and not wanting to put more people over there.

[00:09:52]>> Do you think we're fighting Iran for our own benefit or do you think we're fighting Iran for Israel's benefit? Oh, >> I think it's definitely our own benefit.

[00:09:59]I think I think this is, by the way, China is like freaking pissed. You know, China sent several billion dollars of stuff with cargo planes to Iran that they were in the process of setting up to help defend them. This is their proxy ally. Like their allies are Russia and Iran. They want Iran to exist and be able to cause trouble to like distract us and force us to split our forces if we ever have to deal with anything they might want to do. This is like a this is like a chess game where they're trying to build this ally and we just smash their ally. And by the way, you know who the strongest military in the world is right now? It's us. And because we're basically deploying all this new technology and all this new AI in ways that no one else is, we're learning how to make interceptors way cheaper. We're learning how to just coordinate all these things we never would have learned before. China has no idea how to do this stuff. Like I'm not saying you want to fight wars to get better, but this makes us so much stronger to to smash their proxy ally to smash their stuff and to and to learn how to use all this technology. Like this makes them a lot harder to challenge us for the next >> You want to talk about how AI's >> Yeah.

[00:10:55]>> what we're using over there.

[00:10:57]>> Yeah. I mean I mean obviously from what I from what I can say and listen I don't have my full clearances this point anymore either, but I have a lot of friends on on both sides and you know we developed a lot of the targeting stuff at Palunteer back in the day. uh you know combined with AI basically. I mean just just think about it for sake of argument. We know Israel and America are both have some of the best hackers. And so there let's say you hacked in to the street cameras. Let's say you hacked into you know logistics uh in the country and who was sending what where like what payments are happening what you know what what what uh you know just all sorts of things you basically can view look at emails where everyone is.

[00:11:31]It's just it's so much information. How would a person look at these millions of pieces of data and figure out what's going on? AI is really really good at that. So for so so Palanteer in a system like that will create what's called the ontology like okay like the the the concepts the frameworks here's the things we care about here's how they can possibly relate to each other and then you take that ontology you take that structure of how to think about things and you overlay like just insane amounts of information we're able to to get in different ways through human intelligence through signal intelligence through hacking uh and then all of a sudden it's able to optimize and say like here's this base you didn't know about storing all these munitions here's this key part of the command center here's this thing over here 300 miles side of Thran, you never would have thought about that's like a backup for for the supply for this key part of their missile launchers, things like that. And all of and all of a sudden like so when when when our when when when Israel in the first start of the war like sends 200 planes as a surprise attack and hits they hit 500 targets in the first 20 minutes, those targets were optimized between the two countries and here's the things that we know we need to get rid of if we want to stop them from causing us more problem more problems. So, I mean, it's just really, really powerful how smart what we could do is, you know, that we couldn't do before.

[00:12:38]>> Interesting.

[00:12:40]What else should we talk about that's going on over there?

[00:12:43]>> Over there?

[00:12:44]>> Yeah.

[00:12:46]>> You know, it's uh >> worries about you. What are you worried about with the straight of her muse? You worried about that at all?

[00:12:52]>> And this, you know, it's it's this this is a tough one. I I am worried. Listen, I think this is one of those things that could take a few weeks and it could take a few months and it's really really hard to stop asymmetric attacks, right? Because I mean I mean so so so the Iranian and listen this is this is this is this is one step removed. I don't have the exact information, but you have these mountains that they're firing out of, right? And it's amazing because as far as we could tell so so what'll happen is they have railroads underground that are way under the granite and they'll take they have tons of missiles there. It's not about how many missiles they have, it's about how many launchers and they have they have launchers and the launcher will come out and it'll go out the railroad to an opening like a cave.

[00:13:31]It'll fire and then it'll hurry back in and we'll see where it fired from and you could like destroy that. So they can never use that again for a long time without spending, you know, months digging out cuz you respawn the hell out of it. But then they go out another cave and another cave and these guys have apparently built like hundreds of these caves. It's actually impressive.

[00:13:48]>> Wow.

[00:13:48]>> Right. It's like they've been preparing for 20, 30 years for this. And so they have these mountains that they're firing out of. And then you have all along the straight of Hormuz, you can you can hide drones, right? You can hide all sorts of things in like hundreds of locations that each time it's a new attack, a new location. So So it could take a while to find all of it, right? It's not it's not it's not easy. And it's not >> Listen, it's especially bad for Europe who turned off their who turned off their energy economy. You want to talk about conspiracies, man? like Europe let Gazprom and Russia fund the green movement and turn off all their goddamn energy and that's why they're in so much pain right now from this >> you know that's a true conspiracy by the way 100% we we've found that it was a ton of Russia money that created the strength of the green parties all around Europe and their main thing was turning off all their energy >> no [ __ ] >> 100% 100% like Russia's not dumb this is great for them right it's great for the Middle East too the green parties are use useful idiots man does it bother you that we're low on munitions There are some munitions we're not low on and there's some interceptor things that we could use a lot more of. Um, listen, I think America's going to be in a lot better position after experiencing this. So, you one of our companies called Chaos has by far the best radar that they're monetizing, but the guy running it who helped build EPIS as well, the EMP company, he's figured out how to do $5,000 uh interceptors now.

[00:15:09]>> What?

[00:15:09]>> He just proved it. He just proved it.

[00:15:11]Did a bunch of things last month. We're going to make thousands of them this year. We're going to make hopefully hundreds of thousands next year. I mean, America is going to be so strong coming out of this because we're learning and we're iterating. We're getting better.

[00:15:21]And it it definitely bothers me that we had to waste like millions of dollars per shot on some stupid interceptors.

[00:15:27]That was dumb. But that's cuz the primes are idiots. We're just going to fix it for them totally honestly, you know?

[00:15:31]>> Right on.

[00:15:32]>> Let's just make it better.