Col Douglas Macgregor: Trump Seeks 'Get out of Jail ' Card Since US Lost in Iran

[00:00:01]President Trump says he is going to release the terms of the deal, the memorandum of understanding with Iran if he has to stand in front of a podium and read it himself. And believe me, there is a lot of people that want to hear what is really in that because what has been leaked today is very upsetting to a lot of people, especially in Israel and those in America who are big supporters of Israel. We're gonna dive into all that today and try to figure out what is really going on and will there even be a deal signed on Friday. We're going to discuss all that uh with our good friend, Colonel Douglas McGregor, defense and foreign policy analyst, former adviser to Secretary of Defense, and highly decorated combat veteran. Uh Doug, as always, welcome to the show.

[00:00:42]>> I'm glad you could tear yourself away from the beach bunnies down there in Puerto Rico to join us.

[00:00:47]Well, something like this is is strong enough to do that because holy cow, there's a lot of things going on there.

[00:00:53]Though it was difficulty, if I can just >> I was expecting you to come on in your party clothes like uh Larry Johnson.

[00:01:00]>> I I thought about doing that. I actually have a shirt that's almost identical to one of Larry's shirts and I may break that out before it's over. Who can say?

[00:01:07]But I do have one interesting that you say because I will be changing into it later. Uh, but let's look at the at the gloom and doom stuff before we get back to the good stuff here. Uh, I want to show this is President Trump is at the G7 today and I know you and I are going to talk about that before we get off the air here. Uh, but here's what he said uh to answer a lot of the questions about people have been having about thisou because the only thing that's been released so far has been what the Iranian side has released about what they said has been mutually agreed to.

[00:01:36]Here's what Trump said. I'll not only release it, I'll probably have a press conference and read it to you word by word so that the press covers it accurately because it's a it's a very important document and uh unlike Obama who could have destroyed the Middle East with a horrible JCPOA.

[00:02:00]It is the worst agreement that was a road to a nuclear weapon. Mine is a wall against a nuclear weapon. I mean, I see these people say, "But we already had one." In other words, he paid a fortune for it. We paid nothing.

[00:02:13]>> Here, Doug, is anyone actually believe in Trump when he keeps saying that canard over and over about how Obama's plan was a road to a nuclear weapon, but mine is a wall in front of it? Who knows what's going to come next? But on those two things, is anyone buying that?

[00:02:28]>> Well, he's probably got about 30% of the electorate that likes to hear criticism of Obama. And so if he's critical of Obama, he'll get a few cheers from that crowd. But ultimately, what is this? I think somebody told me this was the 39th announcement of an end of war uh agreement. So >> actually, it's the 40th to be we keep been keeping track.

[00:02:53]>> Well, we we have to see what's in it.

[00:02:55]And you know, perhaps I don't know if you've seen the contents. I have not.

[00:03:00]I've tried to listen to the various parties and one of the things I've discovered is that what the Iranians say and what we are saying are not exactly the same things.

[00:03:09]>> Well, yeah. In fact, that there has been some things out. I'll just jump right into some of that here. Uh there was a a story out this morning that uh that Mark Tissson and several others uh were just up in arms about because they said, "I can't possibly believe this is what we're seeing." Uh but here's some of the terms here. Just a couple of them I want to talk about especially is the first one. The first point the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States together with their allies in the current war declare upon the signing of this memorandum an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts including Lebanon. And that is causing a lot of consternation uh in many quarters here, not the least of which uh Benjamin Netanyahu because this is central to what he is telling all of his people is necessary for his national security.

[00:03:54]Here's what he said when he was asked on that issue today.

[00:04:05]Scam Iran by SC.

[00:04:33]So, in case anybody couldn't read that small print there, he was he was asked, "Are you going to abide by that clause uh in the agreement if that's what's in there because you said we're going to go further?" And he said, "Listen, that's President Trump's deal. uh as long as he can end the nuclear program and the disarmament of Iran, he could do whatever he wants, but we have our own interest and we're going to follow those as well. So, he did not commit to doing it. Uh what do you does is that going to unseat that's point number one at least of what's been leaked today. Is that going to undo the day before it even gets to signing on Friday?

[00:05:08]>> Potentially. Again, it depends on President Trump who is looking for what do we call it? get out of jail card. In other words, we've we've just fought a losing war with Iran. We'd like to end this and uh sort of steal away into the night without any further difficulty.

[00:05:28]He's looking for a piece of paper that confers that ability on him. The problem is that, and we've talked, I think about this before, for Mr. Netanyahu, and frankly for the Israelis, the fight with Hezbollah is existential. You know, they know that with Hezbollah, there can be no outcome other than Hezbollah's destruction or Israel's capitulation.

[00:05:53]And the Israelis are not going to capitulate to Hezbollah. What the Israelis have tried to do in the past and what they're doing now is to separate Iran from Hezbollah. That has not happened and that has not worked.

[00:06:06]And I see no evidence that that will happen now. In fact, what we see happening with Iran is it's emerging as the celebrity leader of the Islamic world, much to the chagrin of all the Sunni uh Muslim princes and elites all over the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere. So Iran is is in the driver's seat. It's not going to abandon Hezbollah. The other thing is you still have the Greater Israel project. And when you expect Mr. Netanyahu to step forward and say we will stop doing what we're doing in Gaza, what we're doing in Lebanon, what we're doing in Syria, along with everything we plan to do everywhere else in Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He's not going to do that.

[00:06:48]So I I think there is a there is a point here of no return for him and he cannot walk away from his stated goals.

[00:06:58]>> Well, so that's it's one thing for him to not walk away from stated goals. It's another thing for President Trump to say you're going to walk away from those.

[00:07:06]But here's what the Iranian side is saying there. This is foreign minister Roxy who was also asked what is Iran's position on the Lebanon issue.

[00:07:15]>> Any military attack from the Zionist entity against Lebanon from now on will never be accepted. The continuation of the Israeli occupation to Lebanese territories is a violation.

[00:07:32]of the memorandum of understanding.

[00:07:35]>> And then we have this in the news this morning. It says Hezbollah insists that Iran will not sign the deal unless Israel leaves Lebanon as Trump moles releasing theou.

[00:07:46]So I mean you see that they seem to be way over here on one camp and way over here on the other camp and Trump trying to find a way through. Uh how's this going to work out? Well, to this point, most of us have concluded that President Trump has been under some form of duress as a result of the Israel lobby and its agents, its billionaire supporters and so forth inside the United States. We're about to find out if that's true. Is President Trump truly an independent agent? Is he in a position to act preeminently in the interest of the United States, even if the interests of the United States supersede or contradict the interests of the Israeli state and the Israel lobby? We're going to have to wait and see. I think it's too soon to tell. We'll see what happens on Friday. But right now, it's very obvious there there's quite a distance growing between Israel and Washington.

[00:08:40]for I would say principally President Trump because I'm sure members of Congress who are very anxious to stay on the receiving end of all that cash uh they're going to side and align with Israel no matter what. And of course there's no real consequence for them personally unless somebody in their district objects uh or or state because uh they're not responsible for the security of the United States. I mean, they are in theory, but we know in practice that's not one of their top considerations.

[00:09:11]>> And and you know, it's interesting. You say, "We'll see how President Trump's going to react." He was also So, all three parties were asked today uh about their the view on Hezbollah. And and here's here's here's what President Trump had to say.

[00:09:24]>> Israel's fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed. And you don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they're not all Hezbollah that I can tell you. And I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah because to be honest with you, I think they do a better job of doing it. So on the first hand that Trump, this is the first time that I'm aware of where he actually calls out the Israeli claim that everything they hid in both Gaza and Lebanon, oh, it was a Hezbollah stronghold. was a Hamas stronghold. Now he says, "No, they weren't. There's no way they were." So, do you think that that's him? There's two things you said there, but we'll look at that first. Do you think that's Trump starting to go into direction where he may go ahead and cut bait and let these guys go?

[00:10:12]>> We'll [clears throat] have to see.

[00:10:13]Again, you know, you're asking the the $90,000 question.

[00:10:18]Can he diverge from Israel's interests?

[00:10:23]In other words, can he move in a new and different direction? need we need to really understand what what is the core problem that he's dealing with. I don't even think President Trump understands this completely. What's the core issue right now in the region? The core issue in the region is Gaza. And it is the determination of the Israeli leadership to Gazify everything they want to to own. In other words, whether it's southern Lebanon or most of Lebanon or southern Syria or most of Syria, wherever they go, the gossification process has to be implemented [clears throat] first. So that's the issue. And you're not going to get any resolution. You're not going to get any end to this disaster until that's addressed. Now, how do you address that? Well, you've got to stop the Israelis from doing what they're doing on the West Bank right now, which is destroying villages, Christian, Muslim, doesn't make any difference to them. Uh, and you've got to regain control inside of Israel of everything going on inside the state.

[00:11:27]And right now, you've got Jewish militias operating independently, settlers, Israeli citizens. Uh, they are loosely affiliated with pro potentially elements of the Israeli Defense Force.

[00:11:40]But my point is it's no longer a unitary state as it was at the beginning. So that's a problem. And then finally, how do you [clears throat] how do you solve anything unless you accept that some form of a Palestinian state has to exist?

[00:11:57]That's impossible. The Israelis have made it impossible. uh there can be no is Palestinian state and the Israelis are not going to integrate themselves or assimilate themselves into the rest of the Middle East. They've refused to do that in the past. They absolutely will not do it now. And frankly, I don't see how they can. How can you tell everyone who is your neighbor that they are subhuman, that they are animals, that they are unworthy of life, and then expect to be welcomed with open arms in the aftermath of some sort of new agreement uh that's signed by the president of the United States and whoever else.

[00:12:40]I I don't see it happening. And you know, finally, you've got this Sykes Pico background from the standpoint of the people in the Middle East right now.

[00:12:48]They're looking at the Sykes Pico agreement and they're saying that's over. And it's not just Israel that is part of this business of being over.

[00:12:57]It's everything. All these states in the Middle East in the Arabian Peninsula primarily, they're not genuine nation states.

[00:13:08]They're artificial constructs. They're creatures of the First World War. That includes Israel. That includes Jordan.

[00:13:15]All of these places. This is the attitude among people living in the region. They say we we need change and that means the elimination of these artificial constructs. Now people say well that's impossible. That can't be done. It's been impossible to this point but things are changing inside the region and the attitudes of people that live there are changing and the Turks and the Iranians are both sitting inside civilizational states. Other words, the Turks, this is the uh successor state to the Ottoman Empire.

[00:13:52]And Iran is the successor state to Persia. Both of these peoples are not uh in some sort of dilemma regarding who and what they are. They are not dependent upon foreign powers to come in and prop them up and ensure they continue to exist. Uh, I can only imagine what the leadership in Ankura or the leadership in Thrron privately thinks about what should be done in the Middle East. I'm sure they're all interested in the same thing. They all want the current status quo to go away and that's the big problem. Now, the UAE understands that and they're trying right now to set up new pipelines to keep them alive so that they can avoid uh moving their oil out of the Middle East. Of course, the unhappy consequence of that is it has to cross Saudi Arabia or Oman. It already has a pipeline over Oman, but especially if it crosses Saudi Arabia.

[00:14:48]What what happens? What does that mean?

[00:14:50]How do they handle it? Everybody is trying to find a way to keep existing.

[00:14:54]But it's going to be very tough after this thing is signed. Now, let's assume it is signed. Will it all break down?

[00:15:03]Well, probably. But if you're simply interested in getting out, if you want to disengage from everything, which I think privately is what President Trump wants to do as far as he's concerned, it may not make any difference, Dan, because he can say, "Look, we did everything we could, and this is the best that we could come up with. If the people in the region refuse to come to terms with it, well, that's not my responsibility or our responsibility." I think that kind of attitude could result in a signing and then ultimately of our disengagement from the region.

[00:15:42]>> And yeah, I want to look at a little bit of the some of the headwinds that are against that because President Trump is being squeezed on all sides as you alluded to a minute ago. Uh he's being squeezed on the Israeli side. Obviously, we're going to see some other things that Netanyahu said in a second. Uh he's also being squeezed obviously by the Iranian side because they're trying to press for uh some really big issues which will also I'm going to show you some of the points of the leaked memo.

[00:16:05]Uh but he's also being squeezed on the American side and that's that's from some of his biggest otherwise supporters um like uh Mark Levin who of course who's a big time supporter of the Israeli side but he's been supporting Trump and everything until we get to here. You've also had uh Rebecca Hinrix who was saying hey we can't leave Israel behind. She posted something on her truth on her on her ex account. Uh and then one of the biggest people who's the most upset and putting the most pressure is Jack Keane.

[00:16:35]>> I can't square some of the things that are coming out of the administration from reliable sources. That's what I find so disturbing. When I heard it from the Iranians, I dismissed it. I said, "That's the same nonsense we always hearing." But when I hear from administration sources some of the things that you have heard of what's in this deal that makes no sense whatsoever. It's not defensible. I think what the president should do is just let's release it and let people see what's out there so we stop debating about something none of us has seen.

[00:17:06]>> Yeah. I think it's pretty clear that he has seen it. That's why he's so up in arms here. But what do you make Well, let's look at it in in order here. What do you make of all the US pressure on Trump not to have thisou?

[00:17:17]>> Oh, well, [clears throat] we talked about that earlier. That's permanent.

[00:17:21]That's not going to go away. I mean, when I say permanent is probably stronger than ever. I'm sure that uh everybody from Paul Singer to Miriam add to Larry Ellis, all of them who are deeply committed Israel firsters are going to oppose this. Uh, and you know, I I don't know what you tell President Trump at this point. President Trump obviously thinks it's not in his political interest or in the interest of the American people that we be permanently embroiled in this mess. At least that's my perception. And so he wants this framework document and I think they sense the possibility that the Israelis have pushed this too far and that at some point people are going to say, "Well, we've had enough and we're leaving." And frankly, how can we avoid it? I mean, if we've learned one thing, we've learned that in this new warfare environment, the new technology of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and the multitude of precisiong guided weapon systems, unmanned missiles, cruise missiles, so forth. We can't protect our allies. And that's sinking in not only in the Persian Gulf, but it's sinking in in Europe and Northeast Asia and elsewhere.

[00:18:38]So all of the conditions that were conducive to this sort of massive investment in US military hegemony by garrisoning states all along the periphery of Eurasia is over. That's stopping. I think that's been made clear to President Trump. If it hasn't, then I think he's found out on his own because it's just not going to work. And uh that means this may be irreversible. Let's put it that way. If this is signed and we follow through with it, it may be irreversible regardless of what the other two parties, Iran and Israel ultimately do.

[00:19:16]>> And uh let me then now go to the Israeli side here because and and as you're going to listen here, this is this is Netanyahu uh talking about um the the good relationship he has with Trump. I think this is translated into English.

[00:19:30]But the interesting thing here, and I'd like you to discuss on the back side of this, is whether it's Netanyahu or whether it's all these war advocates here in the United States that say, "No, let's keep going. Let's keep fighting."

[00:19:41]They have to recognize what you just said about we can't do it. We can't protect against incoming Iranian fire.

[00:19:48]If it goes back to a hot war, we can't protect others. So, it's literally self-destructive to go back into it. And yet, that seems to be what they're asking for.

[00:19:58]Trump and I have known each other for many years. We often see eye to eye and there are also cases where we see less eye to eye. I am responsible for Israel's security interests. I stand up for them, not by being belligerent. And you have to do it wisely and a lot of familiarity with the American arena. It requires a lot of experience. I think I do it in the best way possible and when necessary, I stand firm for our security interests.

[00:20:26]You know, I'd really just kind of as an aside, I'd love to hear President Trump say the same thing. Yeah, I like Israel, but I'm going to stand for American security interest first. Is Netanyahu is going to do what you suggest? And the question is whether President Trump will or not. But if you could from the military perspective, answer that question. Why are all these people pushing for something that self-evidently we cannot accomplish militarily?

[00:20:48]uh they cannot suspend their disbelief in the possibility that the force that we have built and have poured trillions of dollars into over the last 354 years is no longer viable in the new war fighting environment. And I'm sure that that is the view of uh General Keane.

[00:21:08]This is always a problem. The senior officers have a great deal of difficulty dealing with new realities on the battlefield, new technologies, new ways to fight, new organizations, and so they tend to resist all of them on the grounds that it hasn't been proven.

[00:21:24]Well, you and I think it's been proven.

[00:21:26]I think a lot of other people have figured this out. We've learned a lot of important lessons from the war in Ukraine as well as the war in the Persian Gulf. I think the Persian Gulf is probably more stark because you have this terrain where there's there's nothing to conceal the explosions and the damage and the operations, whereas a lot of what goes on in Ukraine is opaque to us. In other words, we can't witness it as easily and as clearly as we can in the Middle East.

[00:21:55]So, I I'm not surprised that he probably feels that way. And he probably says, "No, you know, we have enough munitions, enough missiles, enough aircraft, and nobody's going to stop us. I mean, remember, we've heard this over and over and over again. Every time you bring up the Russians or the Chinese or the potential of their intervention any Oh, forget that. That's irrelevant. They're never going to do anything." That I think is a very dangerous position to take. And I think that President Trump knows that's a dangerous position as well. There are a lot of other things happening. President Trump, I'm sure, has listened carefully to Mr. Erdogan, he has to, you know, the Turks are a major power. Uh he's listened to General CC in Egypt, very vulnerable, but he is still the leader of the largest Muslim Arab country in the world. So I I think uh it's easy if your if your view of the world is through one very narrow prism, and that's the case with a lot of these people that are sort of unambiguous, permanent Israel firsters. But if you're the president of the United States, there's a lot more out there that you've got to take into account.

[00:23:03]>> Well, there is a lot more. In fact, there's a lot more in this deal here.

[00:23:06]We've been talking about some big headwinds just with the Lebanese issue alone and where the the Iranians say in Lebanon, what the Hezbollah says in Lebanon, what Trump says in Lebanon, what Israel says in Lebanon. Just I don't know how you square that one issue, but there's a lot of other issues in two. And in fact, apparently the Wall Street Journal is now also reporting on some of the leak terms. So apparently some of the things we've been talking about are in fact in the US version.

[00:23:29]Trump still has not yet read them out there. We'll get to that as soon as it does. But let's take a look at what else has been talked about here because one of the things that has Mark Tissson who's a uh you know has been a huge supporter of this continued war and has been really happy for to kill however many Iranians is necessary. He puts out this morning here that the United States undertake, this is what he says is one of the terms, the United States undertakes together with its regional partners to create a comprehensive agree plan by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran while ensuring financing of at least $300 billion.

[00:24:07]Now, that's any way you want to square that one. That is uh reparations that only the losing side pays. Uh and in fact here this is the the terms here where he's at that point he's putting put out there. But let's just see wherever that money JD Vance was interviewed yesterday and he tried to sidestep this and said oh well you know it'll come from somebody else. It won't come from the United States and then and then uh and then I think today Jack Keane I won't show you that video right now but he he answered on that said well I don't care where the money comes from. We cannot allow these guys to have that. But is there a way around it without giving them reparations if we don't get it signed?

[00:24:51]>> Well, uh, first of all, let's let's be clear. Mark Tissson along with General Keane have fully embraced the Israeli narrative that Iran is the sort of arch deacon in the church of Satan, that it is permanently evil, that its intentions are evil, that it society is evil, and therefore it must be destroyed. Quite frankly, that's that's the way they look at it. Uh that's why you keep hearing people say, "Bomb them again. Bomb them again. bomb them again.

[00:25:25]Uh, I don't think President Trump privately believes that. I, in fact, I I know from comments he's made in the past. I don't think he believes it. And I think he recognizes that there is a critical need for stability in the world right now, not chaos. And this this war in the Persian Gulf has created chaos, financial, economic, strategic chaos.

[00:25:48]So, you know, what do what do you say to somebody that that insists? I mean, what if you were married to someone and all of your friends hated the person that you married and said terrible things about her? Well, you know her and you don't agree with that. So, you have a choice. You can listen to all of your friends or you can stick with your wife.

[00:26:06]I mean, it's the same sort of thing. And I think President Trump is is thoughtful enough that he knows that the things that Iran is being accused of are not valid. And he now knows that the Israelis are capable of things that neither he nor I nor many of us ever thought was possible. I certainly did not.

[00:26:27]>> I didn't.

[00:26:28]>> And so I don't think it works. And uh you know Mark Thson's comments notwithstanding, it's a disaster if you're Netanyahu.

[00:26:40]It's a disaster if you're permanently committed to Israeli regional hegemony and international Jewish finance.

[00:26:48]But for the rest of us, no, it's not a disaster. And we have an interest in doing business with Iran just as we have an interest in doing business with Russia and China and frankly everybody else.

[00:27:02]Yeah, and uh that that there's that Wall Street Journal headline we mentioned there. That's that's breaking news from their perspective here that just came out when our show just came on the air here. Uh and let's take a look at that point here from the uh the the terms that have been leaked here. The United States commits to ending on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of the final agreement all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran. long list here including resolution of the United Nations Security Council uh and the board of governors of international atomic energy agency and all unilateral sanctions both primary and secondary that is a huge list there Doug because you're talking about all the sanctions will be released and the Iranians have been saying this has to be up front or there's no deal and now here at least if these terms are are true this is from our side now then we're going to have to wave all that and just can you imagine the the heads exploding in Washington DC if he actually does that Trump and waves those sanctions. Do do you think he can get by with that?

[00:28:04]>> Well, I think he's going to have trouble with the Congress obviously because they're still in the hip pocket of APEC and they're going to rage against any lifting of sanctions uh on Iran or for that matter anybody else that the Israelis in the lobby don't like.

[00:28:21]But he's doing the right thing. Look, he this this is the past. I think President Trump is divorcing himself from this uh sort of self-defeating uh self-destructive past that has characterized US foreign and defense policy for 30 40 years. Uh we had an opportunity after 91 and it's certainly a big opportunity after 2001 to change directions in a number of ways. We didn't. We doubled down on all the stupid policies. We could have turned large numbers of countries into friends and instead we turned them into opponents or we alienated them. All of this business needs to go away. But that's not popular inside the beltway.

[00:29:08]The beltway likes the status quo. This the beltway likes the status quo that keeps the money flowing to the places where they want it to go. And what Trump, you know, started to do in his first uh term was to change that money flow. Then he abandoned it. Then he came on again. And initially he talked a great game, but he didn't he didn't do it. He failed in Ukraine. He's failed in Minneapolis. He's failed in so many places. Perhaps now at this point he's recognized, you know, I'm [clears throat and cough] I'm pushing up the wrong hill and it's time to get off this particular hill and get onto a more level path into the future. I don't know. I I don't know where he is right now, but he kind of conveys that impression to me. And do do you think that he has the wherewithal just emotionally to carry the day anymore with this especially with all these folks that we just mentioned here?

[00:30:06]And there's a whole there's a lot longer list of those people who are upset about a lot of those things. And one more issue which I will get to right after this. But the question is can he bring his side into compliance to convince them? you've talked about so many times on our show in the past about how one of his biggest superpowers is his ability to spin anything and get people to believe something, but are we getting to the edge of that superpower? Can he actually convince these people to get on board with him if he goes down thisou path?

[00:30:38]>> Who controls our media, the mainstream media? And how meaningful is that today?

[00:30:44]One of the things that I've learned over the last several months is how meaningless the mainstream media has become. You know, you you take someone like Tucker Carlson.

[00:30:55]Uh people thought that he was a major figure in media when he was working at Fox. What is he today? A far greater, far more influential figure now that he is no longer at Fox than he was when he was with Fox. So I think the media picture has changed. I think there is uh alternative media. They're growing and ultimately they they are going to eclipse what we consider to be mainstream.

[00:31:25]Are [clears throat] we there yet? No.

[00:31:28]But we're moving in that direction. Is that going to be enough to help President Trump if he takes this path?

[00:31:33]That I don't know. The second thing is the anti-war sentiment in the United States is far more widespread than I think people realize. You know, we don't have a draft. And most [clears throat] of the reasons for all the demonstrations during the Vietnam conflict, against the conflict, particularly after 68 were because of the draft. And it wasn't just because people didn't want to serve, but they began to realize the war made no sense and they didn't want to die pointlessly.

[00:32:03]Not an unreasonable position. Correct.

[00:32:06]So I think that attitude is greater now inside the United States than certainly it has been since I saw it in the 1960s.

[00:32:15]And this time it's a more reasoned attitude. It's not I don't want to serve my country. Uh no, that's not the issue at all. I'm not interested in going to some remote part of the world and sacrificing my life for a set of interests that I don't necessarily support or agree with as an American.

[00:32:36]So I I think President Trump depending upon how much energy he has uh is in a position where he could make this work.

[00:32:45]But he he definitely has an enormous number of enemies on the hill thanks to the lobby uh that will fight against him tooth and nail. No question about it.

[00:32:56]>> And one final thing that has been one of the biggest sticking points and this is this is one of the President Trump has painted himself into a corner on this one is because he has adnauseium tried to distinguish this from the Obama JCPOA deal to say it's so much better etc. And then he specifically has always mocked Obama for giving plane loads of cash, $1.7 billion, etc. And then now then the Iranian side is saying they're going to have to have somewhere around 10 billion upfront or there's not going to be a deal. That's what they have said here recently. Uh and here's now the that sticking point here. This is uh point number 11 here at the bottom. says, "The United States undertakes that in light of the progress of negotiations toward a final agreement, frozen or restricted funds and assets to the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available." They didn't put a number on there, so we don't know if it's 24 or something else, but according to this, we have committed to doing this. And so far, President Vice President Vance has said, "No, there's no money up front."

[00:33:56]President Trump said on on with Christian Welker a week ago on Sunday, definitely not no money up front. And now here this says money up front. How's he going to spend that one?

[00:34:07]>> [clears throat] >> It's hard to tell, but I think he knows in the back of his mind that if he can make this work, uh, particularly with Iran and the United States and change, you know, this state of almost permanent warfare in the Middle East, excuse me, that he also has an opportunity afterwards to do something similar in Ukraine.

[00:34:35]you know, the short time that I was with him, there's one thing I would say about him is that I never saw interest in waging war. I I just didn't.

[00:34:47]This was not somebody who set out to blow things up. He was willing to do it if he thought he had to, if he if he felt compelled to do so, but it wasn't something he wanted to do. if he can make this work and you know this all depends on all the factors that we've discussed he he may not be able to bring the Israelis on board and the Israelis may insist on going it alone and there may may not be a great deal that he can do about it at least not initially uh but if he can make it work between the United States and Iran and the rest of the region then I think he has an opportunity to do something similar with Russia Ukraine and Eastern Europe Europe and that would be a a tremendous achievement and we shouldn't write it off as impossible at all. It all depends on him. [clears throat] Can he stay the course and and can he hold you know support together to make it work. Uh I think he can do it but you know it depends on things over which neither he nor I have a great deal of control right now. You know, Doug, that that kind of brings you back to something that when especially when you look at this whole paniply of headwinds that are against it, both inside his inner circle, uh, the Iranian side, the Israeli side, and this whole issue with Lebanon, that if that can hold it hostage, then the whole thing can be blown up. Even if he agreed to everything and took the political heat at home, it still seems to me, and I'd like your view on this, that the most effective way that he can control is to say, "Okay, you guys don't want to agree to this stuff. Okay, then you're on your own. I'm just the whole walk away thing.

[00:36:27]I will come back if you try to do the nuclear program again. If you dig the dust up out of the earth, whatever he's been saying, he can say that and then just walk away because then I don't have to give any sanctions. I don't have to give up any frozen funds. I don't have to surrender anything other than just saying we're gonna walk away and now then you guys are going to figure it out on your own because then it doesn't matter anything else and then he's in control of it. Do you think that that is actually his most effective way to go forward? And if not, what would be because I don't see another one.

[00:36:57]>> Well, remember uh freezing other people's funds as we've done with the Russians and the Iranians and others is a good way to undermine the efficacy of your own financial system. One of the reasons that bricks is rising and one of the reasons that the Chinese alternative to Swiss swift is uh growing stronger with each passing day is because we have demonstrated to the world that we're not reliable. You can't trust us. Uh with a stroke of a pen, banks in New York City and elsewhere in the United States can essentially deprive you of your funds.

[00:37:35]That's a very very dangerous thing to do. Uh so releasing funds, I'm in favor of it 100%. Uh we ought to end this practice of arbitrarily barring access to funds from foreign countries that we don't like for whatever particular reason. So on that on that point, I totally disagree with the people in Washington and their thinking. But then again, I want to live in a different world from the one they're happy with. I don't want to live in a state of uh unrelenting conflict with people when there's no reason for it. I want to be able to do business with everybody. I keep saying that and people look at me, what do you what do you mean? I mean exactly what I say. We we want commerce now. We we need to structure that in a way that's mutually beneficial. There are ways to do that without necessarily sanctioning everybody. Uh that's part of it. The second part is that uh you you could be right that in the final analysis he can't achieve everything and he may have to walk away. But what does walk away mean?

[00:38:40]Are you going to walk away from the enormous amounts of money that you pour into Israel on a routine basis? Uh that's the question. Everyone on the hill will stand up and say, "Oh, you can't do that."

[00:38:53]uh which means if Israel has access to unending funding for whatever it wants to do, its behavior will not change. If you're trying to affect a change in behavior with Israel, you have to address the funding issue.

[00:39:13]And I guess we'll find out if that's going to happen. Uh we're I guess the next thing we're going to wait to see is when Trump finally rolls that out and then we'll be able to say no longer this is leaked or that. Uh but here's what he said and then we can look at it. Uh but Trump is not only in the news today because of this. Trump is also in the G7 here and I just want to pop this up in here because as uh Zalinsky is also there again I don't know why uh but Zalinsky says the G7 agreed Russia is not winning the war and discuss more sanctions. Uh what do you make about Trump's uh issue there and about whether or not more sanctions is going to help?

[00:39:51]>> I think President Trump has realized that he's a gargantuan liar. The war is lost. There's no chance for you Ukraine in any way, shape, or form militarily to overcome the Russians. I think he knows that. I think he also senses that this is a uh trip backward in time. It's sort of like going to the natural history museum. Who is who is the G7? They're not necessarily the big movers and shakers they once were. The world has changed a great deal. And you know, you talk about the Japanese. The Japanese are in a very difficult position. And they've made it abundantly clear to us, you know, if you are going to demand that or try to prevent us from having access to Russian oil that we need right now in Japan, well, we'll just sell off the rest of your debt.

[00:40:44]Uh this is, you know, we have a bond market that that's very fragile. you turn on, you know, the analysts, pick your analyst, whoever it is, from Ray Dalio to Luke Groman, uh, to, uh, Grunt Gundlock, any number of them, they'll all come back to the same thing.

[00:41:02]What's the bond market doing? Because that's, that's been the bell weather for so much in our history. And many of these European states, they have one foot in the financial grave right now. I mean, imagine Starmer showing up for a thing like this. He has about as much credibility as Al Capone. Forget it. So, I think President Trump is sort of surveying everything. I think he sort of intuitively grasps some of this. How much? I can't tell you, but I think he gets it. I think he understands this is the past, not the future. And I think he understands that's also true in the Middle East. You can only fight the future so long. and eventually if you continue to fight it, you will be destroyed by it.

[00:41:49]>> Now, let me ask you this question on on this the Russia Ukraine war itself.

[00:41:54]Obviously, President Trump comes into office and says, "Yep, I'm going to have this done. We're going to knock it out in one day and then it was 100 days and I infinitum and now here's 17 months later." Um, he's basically saying, "Yeah, I'm washing my hands of it. Not doing anything." uh the day before he left for the G7 and didn't get much press here because so many other things were going on, but Vladimir Putin initiated a phone call and they talked for about an hour and Putin was bringing up ways he thought he could try try and bring about an end to this. I think that he did that ahead was ostensively to wish Trump happy birthday, but uh it was ahead of the G7. Uh and then you can see the headlines from today. Doesn't seem that that released a lot uh because it says Trump signals swift return to sanctions on Russian oil as G7 refocuses on Ukraine. And you know that the whole deal again this is the I I remember Doug you and I were talking this well over a year ago that we keep the the Europeans keep going back to that sanctions. The first 18 rounds didn't do anything and then they came with a round over 19 that was going to do it. Then 20 that wasn't going to do it. And now here 21 they're trying to do another one. I mean at what point do they just have to see this is just continued to saw off the limb that they're standing on.

[00:43:07][clears throat] >> You know FDR at the end of the pot stam conference was in pretty bad shape and it it wasn't long before he died and he was talking to the admiral who functioned as his senior military adviser and also effectively as the chairman of the joint chiefs.

[00:43:24]And the admiral said to uh President Roosevelt, you know, Mr. President, these agreements that you've signed with the Soviets, nobody believes that the Soviets will ever honor those agreements, nobody believes that this is this is good for the West or for the United States in our lives. And he finally, this is Admiral Ley, and he finally turned to Admiral Ley and he said, "I know, but I'm just too damn tired to fight anymore." And of course, not long thereafter, he passed away, he was tired. He shouldn't have been president. He should never have had that last term. There's nothing we can do about that. I don't know where President Trump is. I think President Trump is focused very narrowly right now in the Middle East. If he can make some success out of it, perhaps he will then turn his attention back to Ukraine. But for the moment, I think he's decided to fight one event at a time. And so the fact that he says, "I'm going to go along with this simply signals that I don't have time to deal with it right now. I'm not going to fight this this bunch. I'm going to focus on where I am right now in the Middle East." And I think that's what's happening.

[00:44:36]>> And so the question is going to be where do we go from here? Because uh and and I think that there's some justification. I know Gary's looking to see if we have a specific soundbite because it based on what you just said there really I think it really sounds like he's kind of leaning in that direction. Uh but at some point he's going to have to do something. I I mean I guess you could just keep trying to kick the can down the road. But and actually let me ask it in the form of a question. Can we just kick the can down the road forever and then not worry about it and literally go two and a half more years for Trump and and just let the state found her? Can we survive that?

[00:45:13]Well, I think we can. Uh, to be frank with you, in Europe, uh, the the deal in Europe for President Trump is as follows. You're you're dealing with people that are presiding over financial, economic, social, and cultural disasters in their own countries. Most of the leaders who are there at this conference will not last much longer. I'm surprised any of them are still there. When I look at Matts, I'm shocked. When I look at Mcronone, I can't believe it. And Starmer, insane.

[00:45:47]Uh, so there's there are going to be major convulsive changes uh after this G7 across Europe. All you have to do is look at what's happening in Ireland, in southern Ireland, in Northern Ireland, recently in Glasgow, and you have a a news blackout that's being imposed by these globalist leaders that don't want the world to know that inside Germany, inside France, inside the Netherlands, inside Great Britain, there is extreme discontent with what's being done to those societies by this massive immigration problem and the massive mismanagement ment of finances and the stupidity of trying to cultivate war against Russia. So those things are underway. Now does President Trump get a briefing on this? Does anybody tell him about that? I don't know. But I think for the for the reasons that I just said, much of what's wrong in Europe is going to be solved. It's not going to be solved through military force. It's not going to be solved by the Russians or US. It's going to be solved internally in these countries and the governments that come to power are going to be singularly disinterested in going to war with Germany because their populations don't or excuse me with Russia because their populations don't want to go to war. Alisa Vital has given a couple of really excellent speeches. Whether or not she ever emerges to lead that country, I don't know, and we'll see.

[00:47:15]But she has pointed the way and she is the beginning of the change not just in Germany but I think across Europe where she is saying look as soon as we have power in Berlin we're going to Russia and we're going to work out new arrangements. We want to import energy.

[00:47:35]We want to end the de-industrialization of Germany. We want to put people back to work. And we're going to tackle this ugly, difficult issue of rounding up millions of people that don't belong in this country who should never have been admitted and sending them home. These are the things that she's saying because they've got to restore the rule of law in Germany. Now, you and I lived in Germany. I've spent almost eight years of my life living off and on in Germany.

[00:48:05]That's a country where until 2015, even earlier than that, uh, you never had to worry about the rule of law. I mean, you had policemen that could never be bribed. They wouldn't even think about it. There was no corruption, and the enforcement of the law was immediate, uniform, uh, just, and, effective. That's changed, and they've got to get that back. They know that. So I I think Europe is poised for revolutionary change on the scale of 1848 and that's going to solve some of these problems. When I say some of them, I'm talking about the problem of war with Russia. That's going to go away.

[00:48:48]Absolutely go away. And when that happens, Zinsk's funds dry up and Zinsky has no support. He'll find an aircraft, I'm sure, and fly somewhere fast to get out of town. He'll look like uh our friends in Kbble at the end, believe me.

[00:49:05]>> And he has no support in Western Ukraine. The people there are sick of it. You've seen the photographs. You've seen the V video footage. People don't want anything to do with this war. And he's trying to push the Europeans to send Ukrainians that are overseas, men, young single men, back to fight. Well, I think they'd like to push a lot of these young single Ukrainians out so they could open up jobs for their own people.

[00:49:29]But, uh, I don't think they're going to send Ukrainians to die pointlessly in eastern Ukraine in a war with Russia that Ukraine has no chance of winning. I I think President Trump gets that. But again, why why should he wrap himself around the, you know, the telephone pole at this point over that? He's got problems in the Middle East he's got to solve, and I think he's going to try that first.

[00:49:56]>> Yeah. Well, we we certainly wish him well on that front as well. Um, interesting. So, President Trump apparently on this on the margins of the G7 met briefly with Silinski. Who knows what he said? We'll have to wait and see. But here's what he said a couple of days ago on the Ukraine situation.

[00:50:12]>> Are you going to have a special focus on Ukraine?

[00:50:15]>> Well, we're going to look now. We focused on We were focused on Iran.

[00:50:19]That's going to be in the back in the rear view mirror. But we'll be I just look we have nothing to do with it. We sell weapons to them. We don't even give her. Obama gave him $350 billion worth of gave which was crazy. The European Union pays us full price for weapons.

[00:50:39]But it's not that. It's that this it has no impact on us other than we sell weapons. We're thousands of miles away.

[00:50:48]Gary had one from today. That's That's not from a couple of days ago. That's from today.

[00:50:52]>> Here's the problem.

[00:50:53]>> Here's the problem. Woodro Wilson uh opened his credit markets to France and Great Britain. And he also opened them to Germany, but he knew during World War I that the Germans were not going to be able to get out of Germany and come to the United States to gain access to credit from us. And so what did he do? He effectively aligned us early on with the British and the French in their war with Germany.

[00:51:22]That was dishonest and it was destructive because within six months France and Great Britain were running out of money. The French president in 1914 when he was asked after the war began, how long will this last? He said, well, six to eight months after that, there is no money. Well, we made up the the deficit. So, we kept the First World War going and we profited from it exactly as President Trump is talking about it. It's morally reprehensible.

[00:51:58]It's wrong and he should not do that.

[00:52:03]But moral rurally reprehensive acts are pretty common place inside the beltway and self-enrichment seems to outweigh any moral consideration these days on either side of the aisle. But I think people need to understand that we were instrumental in making this war in 1914 last as long as it did and ultimately in the complete destruction of central East Europe as a result. And we know what that meant. It brought communism to power in Russia and eventually national socialism to power in Berlin. Dumb, stupid, foolish. So, he needs to cut it off. And that's what he should do as soon as possible. You talk about how important it is to cut off the Israelis from the funds and the munitions and the weapons that they are using to destroy their their neighbors. It's no less important to cut off Ukraine. If you don't do it, eventually the Russians and I think uh reality will set in with Europe, but more people will die needlessly.

[00:53:03]>> Well, that's what I wanted to ask you that I guess the last question. I know we're running low on time, but [clears throat] you can you can print money, you can build weapons, you can create among long range strikes, etc. You can't print men, though. And every day these Ukrainian folks have died and God only knows what the actual number.

[00:53:21]in the clearly in the hundreds of thousands of dead and who knows how many more wounded. There has to come an expiration point where it won't matter how much money or how many weapons you send over there. Doesn't there come a point where the Ukraine side will just have necessity collapse? Well, there's so much money to bankroll Zalinski and his inner circle to pay off people uh in Marada and keep the secret police uh flush with cash and the various oligarchs happy that quite frankly the people of Ukraine don't matter in Ukraine. That's that's the issue. Putin is struggling right now with a great deal of pressure, not just from the Russian populace that wants an end to this, and they certainly do, but from his inner circle to take action. We'll see what happens. Recently, we've had some dramatic strikes that you've reported on by the Russians against Ukraine. And we have a continuous advance on along the Russian front. Uh, Pocros has fallen. uh Zabar Russia is is in range. Uh essentially Novarusia, which we talked about years ago, is becoming a reality. The question is, how do you end this if you're a Russian? And I think the reality is setting in that if the Europeans are not going to come to their senses, you're going to have to cross the river and go into Kief.

[00:54:49]Uh but that's something that they don't want to do. And remember that one of the things that's been uppermost in President Putin's mind is not only he wants to spare lives, he's concerned about sparing Russian lives, he's also tried to spare Ukrainian lives, contrary to what people think. But the other thing that he has to consider is NATO.

[00:55:11]And you have these maniacs that keep talking about war with Russia. Now, we just had the British defense minister resign his post. and he has talked privately and and admitted somewhat publicly, the British Defense Department is broke. You know, the British armed forces are in ruins. They have nothing with which to fight. Gosh, what a shocker. Well, take a long good look at everybody else in Europe. Are the French a little better? Yes. But are the French up to a full-fledged war against Russia?

[00:55:42]Of course not. And Germany? Come on, don't even go there. They've been running every nationalist in Germany out of the military and the the European populations collectively don't want a draft and they don't want to fight anywhere. So at the end of the day, I think President Putin will probably decide to take some action and that will be used against Russia. See, this is the issue, Dan.

[00:56:07]The Russians could go to Kiev tomorrow.

[00:56:10]If they do that, people are going to say, "See, Putin wants to conquer Eastern Europe." It's complete nonsense.

[00:56:17]It's never been true. Uh, but he may not have any choice because this criminal regime is not going to go away as long as it has cash, equipment, and support.

[00:56:27]And by the way, we think they have at least 40 to 50,000 mercenaries on the ground in Ukraine fighting for Ukraine.

[00:56:36]They can't they can't find enough men who are Ukrainian to fight for Ukraine.

[00:56:42]And it's it's astonishing that there could be that many because the Russians have made it clear if they capture a person who is a mercenary who is not Ukrainian, that person can be executed under Russian law as a terrorist. So I it's astonishing to me that this thing continues. It's a meat grinder. It's it's just a a a bloodabsorbing sponge that makes no sense. And I'm saddened by Donald Trump's readiness to just sign off on more stupidity for Ukraine. I'm saddened by the people on the hill that run around with these little flags on their lapels without understanding what they're doing and what the consequences are for the people in Ukraine. But that's the way it is.

[00:57:24]>> It It is. Do you have time for one more question?

[00:57:28]>> One more. Yeah. [laughter] Okay.

[00:57:31]>> Okay. All right. This is what Hex has said about how in terms of how long can we go. This is what Hex has said about our ammunition stock piles. Don't even worry about it.

[00:57:42]>> We're supercharging our arsenal of freedom, building more, building faster, opening up the Pentagon, ripping through the Pentagon bureaucracy to force industry to move faster. Sois get stronger in the future.

[00:57:55]>> Is there is a crisis with those stock piles right now and private industry. a manufactured story that the media wants to pedal and ultimately we are our stockpile.

[00:58:04]>> Okay, that's that's long enough. He said there's no process, Doug.

[00:58:07]>> He said there's no process. We can just keep going. Is he telling the truth?

[00:58:11]>> In his mind, I think he feels obligated as the secretary of war to tell everybody, don't worry, everything's just fine. There is no crisis.

[00:58:22]In truth, uh, you've got to look at the whole range of of missions and equipment and munitions and weapons, and you begin to see that we are reaching a point now where it is not in our interest to delve deeply into those stockpiles. We've already exhausted many many well let's put it this way. We've exhausted depth in our capabilities in our stockpiles.

[00:58:53]H that's not it's not the end of the world but it's dangerous. I mean if you take the position that we might have to fight might have to fight a major highend conventional war. Yes. uh we we're not sufficiently stocked and keep in mind we have not mobilized the country and there's no reason to remember when they started talking about Russia early on well the Russians are going to run out of this or that or next week and you know two months from now the Russians will have nothing left well Putin mobilized industry he he went short of total mobilization but he had partial mobilization we haven't done that could we do that sure we Do we need to? No, we don't. So, I I probably would not have said things the way he did, which is don't look here.

[00:59:48]There's no problem. We're golden. We're fine. We're the arsenal of freedom.

[00:59:52]Okay. Thanks. Thanks, coach. You know, we'll go on to the football team and do the best we can. But, you know, we we need less hyperbole in Washington, Dan.

[01:00:04]We need the facts, but we also need a balanced assessment. And the best balanced assessment I can give is are we at critical levels in some areas? Yes.

[01:00:15]Can we rectify that? Yes. Are we doing something to address it? Yes. Next question. That would be enough. We don't need the cheerleading speech.

[01:00:25]>> And apparently that's uh that's all we're going to get. But that's also all the time we have today. Thank you for going a little bit overtime with us, Doug. Always much appreciated.

[01:00:32]>> Okay. Thank you.

[01:00:34]>> There people can see the more of Doug on his Substack. uh where where he publishes stuff at McGregor Warrior.substack.com. Thanks very much, Doug.

[01:00:43]>> Thank you. Byebye.

[01:00:44]>> And we appreciate you guys, too. Uh be sure and like and subscribe if you haven't done that on the way out and we will keep you informed of anything else that breaks whether it's in the Iran situation Ukraine war. And we'll see you next on the Daniel Ste.

[01:00:57]>> You know, I don't try to talk you into buying gold or tell you how to run your stock portfolio, but there is a way you can help us. Subscribe, hit that like button, and share this with somebody you love.

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