the most wrong in your view in this world? What bothers you the most? Is it the low interceptors, which I find to be the biggest concern militarily?

I think there are a lot of things that could have gone better.

You know, the question is whether there was an actual diplomatic solution available to President Trump in some reasonable timeframe.

And I would disagree with you.

I don't think there was.

I think there was a tremendous amount of dissembling and tap dancing and other things going on.

And I don't think the Iranians thought they needed to.

relation? Or that is extreme wishful thinking that is not even something you think about?

And, of course, nothing just sort of occurs and happens.

Now, throw in Bernie Sanders.

So we've got our favorite commie here in the U.S.

He said, oh, we've got to stop it before we destroy the world.

Look, the anthropic and open AI guys, they're scared about their IPOs because they are burning truckloads of $100 bills to build these super cool AIs that people are using right now to make videos of rabbits bouncing on trampolines.

That's not a sustainable business model and that's going to cost them money.

And when you do an IPO, you get a very deep audit before you can do that by the accounting firms who do that for a living.

What do you say?

It is the language of genocide.

He didn't say he was going to annihilate the entire country.

He said he would annihilate the Islamic Republic, which does not represent the entire country, and tyrannizes basically the entire country.

And if you went and checked with the people of Iran and looked how many of them would prefer another government to the Islamic Republic, you're probably well north of three quarters of the country would much prefer the Islamic Republic to dump itself on the ash heap of history.

Now, as far as what the, the plan was, the plan initially in Iran was not based on just that.

President Trump went to the Gulf States as his first overseas trip.

He told the Qataris, Emiratis, and Saudis, "This is your neighborhood.

So let me give you the chance to respond.

What, what do you, what do you think we can do as a party about this, uh, you know, unwillingness to destroy America's enemies, uh, with blood on Amer- uh, on their paw, uh, American blood on their paws?

Yeah, I think there's a, [clears throat] there's a combination of things.

One, there is a, a trend against interventionism, and I think that's reasonable, you know? We have done a horrible job prosecuting the wars we have fought, uh, in recent times, and so I don't think there's any track record of being able to say, "Oh, we can do this and it'll go great." You know, I think we have vastly overestimated our ability to create democracies out of crap holes.

But that also leads to the situation where if you don't take care of some things, you have bigger problems down the line, and I think we need a, a mid-point between non-intervention and forever war that says every once in a while you gotta kick somebody in the teeth to, A, stop them from doing the bad things they're doing, and B, point out to the rest of the bad actors in the world that could be you next.

That's where I stand.

stand.Yeah, and I, and I think you, you hit a good distinction there, is the military is perfectly capable of executing the kinetic missions, and that's never been the problem.

We haven't lost a fight face-to-face with anybody in, in, [laughs] since World War I, you know? So we're, we're not in a situation where we're losing the military battle, but our foreign policy establishment and the objectives we set and the political restraints we put on operating, uh, stop us from winning wars we should win quickly, decisively, and painfully for our enemies.

And that leads to less wars in the future, and that's, I think, the thing that, uh, the people who are anti-war at this point are not grasping.

We, you cannot compare them.

My point is this.

My...

Wait a minute.

Let me make my point.

My point is, if you're the Iranian regime and you see all this going on, and you know that four and a half months into this war you still have the regime intact, the ayatollah's been replaced by his son, the IRGC are in full control, your people aren't rising up, and you con- control the Strait of Hormuz, and you're causing devastating damage to the neighboring Gulf States by firing off missiles directly impacting their business model going forward, if you're aware of all these facts, and you've got all your rich uranium, and the President of the United States is saying to the Saudi Arabians, "You can basically have what the Iranians have," why on earth would you have any incentive to end this?

Let's go with it.

We tried negotiation.

Am I naive? Am I wrong?

[laughs] No, they were wrong.

And, and that's just it.

President Trump looked at it and he said, "I'm willing to take the short-term political hit to do the right thing for the country," which is what we elected him to do.

Uh, that's rare in a politician, 'cause he knew.

He knew gas prices were gonna go up.

He knew they were gonna block the Strait of Hormuz.

Yeah.

Um, and it's all been very confusing and very inconsistent, but ultimately if at the center of this is Donald Trump's claim that Iran must be stopped from developing a nuclear weapon, can this war be perceived to be successful if the enriched uranium which Iran possesses remains in Iran in their possession?

Well, to extend the metaphor, I'd say that's the Holy Grail.

You have to get that.

And I, I don't think there has been a shifting of goalposts.

The goal all along has been to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, being able to develop one, having the initiative to do it, having the ability, having the ballistic missile programs and other conventional arms that protect them and stop other people from going in and removing that capability.

So from that perspective, all of those things have at least been put on hold, uh, or set back decades.

Their defense industrial base is nonexistent at this point.

Yeah.

If they ma-- Is there any calculus that if the Iranians can make being a US ally painful enough and we're not able to actually defend the people who stuck with us, that we see a geopolitical rift like that?

You know, I think that was their attempt.

That's why they started shooting missiles at all of the Gulf States.

But I think, uh, as opposed to driving a wedge between those people and us, you know, those states and us, uh, it went the opposite direction.

Just yesterday at the United Nations, the Security Council passed a resolution that condemned Iran, and all of the Gulf States signed onto it.

They actually sponsored it.

So you had the very people who Iran is atta-- And that's, that's pretty unprecedented.

Um, what do you make of their ability to potentially, you know, just add more, add more fuel to the fire? I mean, the Houthis shut down the, uh, the Red Sea basically entirely for, well, depending on who you are, still now.

Uh, but you've got to wonder, if they can't manage things like, you know, not losing $9 billion, how are they guaranteeing the elections are fair? And do they actually want to have fair elections? My guess is they don't.

No, I, I think the fun part of this...

Okay, ActBlue was the big Democrat machine for taking money in and funneling it to candidates.

And now they've found out that those guys weren't even checking credit cards to make sure they were valid.

So we know they were funneling foreign money, we know they were illegally giving more money to multiple candidates than they were allowed to by making up straw donors.

And then they were using the entire federal government and all of our tax money as the big funnel at the top to push that into.

So I, I love unraveling this.

Uh, and since most of it's federal money, wh- what the hell do the people, uh, the Democrats in Minnesota care? They don't.