6/12/25: Hegseth Threatens National Guard Everywhere, Newsom Stocks Surge, Israel Plots Iran Strike
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Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. A lot of big things happening here and around the world. So we'll update you on those protests. Pete Hegseth had some significant testimony in front of Congress yesterday. Moments did not go so well. So break all of that down for you. Also, Gavin Newsom obviously seizing the moment to potentially further his presidential ambitions. So break down the political aspect of that as well. All

All eyes on Israel and Iran. Some very ominous signs that Israel may be preparing to strike Iran. Murtaza Hussein is going to join us to break down those indications and what we can say about that and where those nuclear talks between Trump and the Iranians are

as of today. So break all of that down for obviously extraordinarily consequential news there. Yesterday, we received word from the Trump administration that they have a China deal, we'll call it. It seems like it's a framework at this point. We've got some of the loose details, Scott Bessent and others answering questions. So we'll tell you what we know about that.

We also have some sort of rapprochement with Elon and Trump, him posting yesterday at 3.04 a.m., which Emily and I mentioned in the show. We didn't have a chance to fully break it down. He regrets. Yeah, he regrets it. Some of the things that he said went too far, Sagar. Yes, that's right. It appears to have been at high-level brokered talks between the White House and between Elon. So perhaps this is the beginning of the bromance again. We'll see. You never know. Twists and turns there. We can only hope no, but you never know. And we have some big

News in the New York City mayoral race. First poll ever to come out that shows Zoran Mamdani leading that race, beating Andrew Cuomo, former governor. We also have some clips from his appearance on The Breakfast Club, which are pretty interesting as well. So we'll take a look at that and what that means more broadly for the Democratic Party, the country, all that good stuff.

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All right, let's get to the protests. All right, let's go ahead and get to the protests. As best as I can tell, protests around the country, including L.A., are pretty quiet last night. The mayor of L.A. has instituted a curfew, and that seems to have calmed things down significantly. So let me show you a couple of clips here from Pete Hegseth's testimony before Congress yesterday. So he got asked whether the Guard could be deployed in other cities.

He also got asked about the usage of the National Guard on January 6th versus with regards to what is going down in L.A. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he had to say. Or which guard. And I'm trying to figure out if you decided to do this collectively in Kansas or any other place, would you need to specify a new sort of fact pattern? Or do you think this order applies to everybody?

Any guard, anywhere, any service branch, anywhere. It's just like, I get your justification. We disagree about the circumstances. I'm just trying to figure out, did you just potentially mobilize every guard everywhere and every service member everywhere? I mean, create the framework for that. I understand you didn't. I'm saying, what does the document do in your opinion?

Senator, if you notice, the initial order of 2,000 in California was followed by a follow-on order for the additional 2,000 with a recognition that the situation there required more resources in order to support law enforcement. So part of it is getting ahead of a problem.

So that if in other places, if there are other riots in places where law enforcement officers are threatened, we would have the capability to surge National Guard there if necessary. The National Guard was deployed here on January 6th, and that was a decision made by the Department of Defense. Do you support that decision? Do you believe that that was the right decision to deploy the National Guard to defend the Capitol on January 6th?

All I know is it's the right decision to be deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles to defend ICE agents who deserve to be defended in the execution of their jobs. But I think it's important to know whether you think it was also important to have the National Guard defending the United States Capitol when there were violent protesters here on the president's behalf to make sure that folks know that you care about protest, whether it's against the president or on behalf of the president. Senator, I was in the Washington, D.C. National Guard

when that happened and was initially ordered to go guard the inauguration of Joe Biden. But because of the politicization of the Biden administration, my orders were revoked.

And ultimately, because of the politics that were being played inside the Defense Department by the previous administration. But you support the decision made on January 6th to send the National Guard here to defend the Capitol. I support the decision that President Trump made and requesting the National Guard that was denied. So you do not support the decision that you made?

do not support the decision to send the National Guard here to defend the Capitol. I think that speaks to the worry that many Americans have that there is a double standard. - So obviously two significant things there. First of all, no limiting principle on the order that Trump signed. You know, Hegseth acknowledges effectively that yeah, we could deploy troops, we could federalize National Guard,

anywhere. And, you know, really important in the context of there are planned protests this weekend on the day of Trump's big military slash birthday parade. Trump himself said that protesters, not violent protesters, just protesters in general, would be met with force. So Pete Hegseth indicating, yeah, this isn't just about L.A. We have the option available. And I don't think anyone would, you know, be surprised if

if they federalize the National Guard in other places, blue states and cities in particular. The other piece here, actually good question from Senator Chris Murphy, because, you know, the January 6th riots were, you know, significantly more consequential and violent than what was going down in L.A. And Pete Hexeth can't bring himself to say that it was the right decision in that instance to bring in the National Guard. But he is fully behind bringing it in in L.A. So before I play the next one, what did you make of that?

Yeah, I mean, the Jan 6th element is one which always really comes back to bite them because you see a lot of the insurrectionist stuff that is being used right now. I mean, here's the thing. We were critical of that National Guard deployment at the time, if you recall. I was talking about it with Ryan. I mean, all of those images of people sleeping on the floor in parking garages and stuff, that actually happened here. We were effectively occupied in Washington for three months, and it cost, I don't even remember how much.

how many billions and billions of dollars. It was useless. It was a completely unnecessary thing. We have some 5,000 US troops of some kind, either National Guardsmen and or United States Marines that are being deployed in defense of this. The crazy thing about the Marines is that we were told that they were actually ready and had been trained in riot control and all this other stuff, but they're actually not the case. They're not even in Los Angeles right now at the moment. So this is a colossal, you know, a

expenditure for what purpose exactly? I mean, the current estimate is what, some $131 million for a single, I mean, it's not even been a full week of this. So extrapolate that out more. Also, anybody who remembers covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of like support personnel that you need to support anything like this is

And so I think that the more that this continues, and especially if it goes national, it's really going to be a very easy talking point, I think, for your Democrats, not only to talk about January 6th, but also just the cost. I mean, the cost does matter here, where it's like you guys are literally rolling around celebrating a $5 million cut to Zimbabwe. It's like you just blew –

hundred times that over a weekend deployment to Los Angeles. So yeah, I think that, uh, I think we are trending, you know, if we talked about the politics and stuff like that here and the, especially as violence hasn't happened yesterday, we'll see over the weekend whenever a buddy's not at work or whatever, but especially if things begin to go down and you just see more militarized like images that come out of LA, I do think things could turn against them. Um, let's go ahead and take a listen to this next part because he gets asked in addition. Okay. So under what authority, uh,

The deployment of the Marines in particular, like what constitutional authority is justifying this extraordinary action with regard to federalizing the National Guard and bringing in the Marines? Let's go ahead and take a listen to Howie's response to that. Just specifically, Mr. Secretary, what is the authority that the administration is using to deploy active duty Marines to California neighborhoods? What authority?

Senator, the president has constitutional authority in order to support... What? Cite the provision of the Constitution. I'd have to pull up the specific provision, but our Office of General Counsel, alongside our leadership, has reviewed and ensured in the order that we set out that it's completely constitutional for the president to use federal troops to defend...

federal law enforcement administration. Are you prepared to authorize DHS to use drones and also to authorize military forces to detain or arrest American citizens? Senator, every authorization we've provided the National Guard

and the Marines in Los Angeles is under the authority of the President of the United States is lawful and constitutional. They are assisting in defending law enforcement officers and law enforcement facilities in the execution of their job in the city of Los Angeles.

So won't rule out their use of drones and military forces. Obviously, the first clip where he's like, I don't really know what authority. I'm sure it's constitutional, but I can't really tell you how. Not a great look there at a time when the authorization of this is legally contested. Gavin Newsom has already sued. There's actually supposed to be hearings today about whether or not this was a lawful deployment operation.

of both the Marines and the decision to federalize the National Guard over the objections of the governor of California. And, Sagar, I was reading yesterday, I actually didn't realize this, Marines were used in 1992 in the context of suppressing the LA riots. Rodney King, yeah.

And some of the local cops were like, this was really not great because they're not trained for domestic law enforcement situations. And one of the anecdotes that became sort of notorious coming out of that is the LAPD were like, all right, cover us to the Marines. Cover us as we go into this house, as we approach this house. Well, for law enforcement, that means, okay, watch, make sure no one's coming out. For the Marines, it meant light up the whole house. And the LAPD were like, what the hell are

you doing? They're like, you told us to cover you. To us, that's what that means. So just to give one example of how that's why you don't deploy active duty soldiers on American streets outside of truly extraordinary circumstances.

Now, the L.A. riots in 1992, I mean, it is hard to if you haven't watched anything or read the news about what went down there. I mean, it was insane. Over 60 people killed, a billion dollars in damage, businesses looted. I mean, this was just going on and on. It was a massive, uncontrolled conflagration. And you had the governor of California who said, yes, we need the help. Yes, let's federalize the National Guard. Yes, federal government, please come in and assist us.

totally different situation here. And I think, Sagar, that is what is so disturbing to me, is the attempt to normalize the use of military forces in a domestic law enforcement context.

And to make it seem normal to have our streets completely militarized in this way. You know, I think you and Ryan made a great point that part of what has conditioned us for this moment also is how all of the local law enforcement in every major city, you can't even tell them apart from National Guard. It's funny. I see these clips go viral all the time. They're like, look, National Guardsmen. I'm like, no, that's LAPD. They just have all this stuff. For what purpose? I actually, I wrote a piece years ago about Ferguson and LAPD.

and about how that actually set the tone for a lot of what we saw. I mean, look, we can debate Ferguson and all that, but I don't think anybody's going to be sitting around defending Ferguson PD even at a right or a left-wing level, and that's specifically because of this. That's what a lot of the conversation, unfortunately, has actually gotten worse, and that is really, I mean, look, I think it's dangerous in this regard, and

And again, you know, for the White House, they really do seem to believe that they're on their strongest footing in taking it on. And look, I mean, we did not deny here that the Mexican flag stuff, all that is not good. I mean, look, there has been some property damage. But, you know, I think contextualizing the scale of this is actually genuinely important, specifically because of the reaction that they're coming here.

But look, we can't deny this is something that the White House wants to pick this fight. And in some respects, I'm not I'm still a bit torn. I don't know yet how the country is going to react because, you know, I did underestimate how much of this like left wing cities out of control stuff has become not only a meme, but like a shibboleth literally across the entire country. Like you don't live in a city, you live in the upper Midwest and stuff. These images are

everywhere. It's literally like, you know, calling people in San Francisco and be like, are you safe? You know, they really have no familiarity at all with that. And you can't blame them probably vice versa as well. I'm just, I'm still kind of trying to tease out and see like how this goes. They clearly believe that things are going to be, you know, for them, but also it's probably about tone setting as well, you know, especially ahead of this military parade here in Washington and New York city, Chicago, Dallas, there's been some other protests, but nothing has really risen to the level.

of L.A. Yeah. Perhaps that's part of it as well. Yeah. All right. Let's go ahead and get to this next piece where, you know, the Trump administration has been threatening to arrest

Gavin Newsom. Tom Homan first, you know, said this and then Trump said, yeah, I think he should. And Trump got another question about this yesterday, whether or not he thinks that Gavin Newsom could be charged and arrested. By the way, the last time he got asked this of like, well, exactly what would be the...

pretext for arresting him. And he said for running for governor. That was the reason. That was the reason he should be charged and arrested. So in any case, he gets asked about this again. Let's take a listen. Are you going to arrest Gavin Newsom? Well, he's not doing a good job. You know, arrest, what does that mean? He's not doing a good job. Charge him? Well...

In theory, you could, I guess. It's almost like a dissipation of duty. Nobody's ever seen anything like that. In theory, I could. So that is where that stands. Also, Socrates, this week they charged this Congresswoman McIver with crimes that could lead to 17 years in prison in the context of that situation that unfolded outside of a federal detention facility that ICE was using in Newark, New Jersey.

you know, you've got a lot of authoritarian pieces coming together here. You have the charging this congressman. We have the threats of arrest of Gavin Newsom for existing and doing things that Trump didn't like. You have the federalizing of the National Guard over the objections of the elected governor of California. You have the deployment of Marines. You had that wild partisan speech to troops at Fort Bragg. By the way, we learned more about that. First of all, they were hand selected to make sure they had the right politics, the ones that were behind Trump. And they sold

the MAGA merchandise, which is like, I mean, again, I know no one cares about the before times and what things used to be like, but these are things that would just be completely out of bounds. And then you have tanks being rolled into D.C. for his big birthday parade show of force and strength, et cetera. So a lot of authoritarian elements just

In your face, you know, flood the zone with them this week as we head into the weekend where there are planned significant protests. They're called No Kings protests that were planned across the country. And especially here in Washington. Yeah, I'm actually curious. We're going to get to that in a little bit as to how the protests and the parade itself might be disrupted because of weather. But who is going to this parade?

They asked a bunch of Republicans and none of them were— I think it's the military. I think what they're going to do is—because remember, the ostensible purpose of the parade is the United States Army's 250th birthday. Just happens to coincide with Trump's birthday. Whatever. I will not be attending, mostly because of traffic reasons. It's impossible to get—

into the city. But what you have here in the Northern Virginia area, as you know, is like there's what half the United States military lives around the Pentagon. They're either going to get orders or they're going to go. And so with a lot of their families. And so that's why I think the vast majority of the people who will be there in attendance of the

grand parade. Shall we remember what the inspiration for this was? Is that all because five or six years ago, Trump went to the Bastille Day parades in France and he was like, hey, this is pretty cool, you know, watching tanks and all that roll down the Champs-Élysées. And that's why he was like, okay, we need to bring this to Washington. I'm actually surprised because it was supposed to be for America's 250th birthday,

which I believe is, isn't that next year in 2026? Yeah, so 1776. So it would have been next year, so July 4th, 2026. But I guess he just had to have one for the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army, something that definitely the U.S. population knows quite a bit about. I'm telling you, I didn't even know it was the 250th birthday. Well, America's birthday doesn't fall on Trump's birthday, so that wasn't going to work out, Sagar. Silly you. One more piece here. We can go ahead and... Is this a VO or a SOG, guys? You can let me know. A pretty...

troubling, in my opinion, given the context, true social post from Trump. Let's go ahead and put this up on the, oh, it's Assad. So let's go ahead and play this and you can take a look at the text on the screen. Let me go ahead and read this a little bit to you before we play it. Because for those of you who are listening by podcast, he says, I am more confident than ever that in the days ahead,

And every generation to come, the US Army will heap glory upon glory. You will summon inexhaustible courage will protect every inch of US soil. You will defend America to the ends of the earth in the days ahead. Okay, let's take a listen. Just the job. It's a calling and a sacred tradition passed down from father to son, brother to sister and one generation to the next that every hour of danger on noblest citizens have answered that call.

Time and again, our enemies have learned that if you dare to threaten the American people, American soldier will chase you down, crush you and cast you into oblivion. All right. So that was that. In addition, Sagar, you pulled this. It literally may rain on his parade. Yes, actually literal rain on the parade. You know, I'm an avid D.C. weather watcher. Here we have storm. Shout out to the Capitol weather gang. Yeah, shout out to the Capitol weather gang.

If you do live in the DMV area, they are absolutely the best. Threatened the U.S. Army's 250th celebration in D.C. on Saturday. A slow-moving front may trigger late-day showers and storms at the parade concert, and fireworks crowds are gathering. Morning looks mostly dry, but heat and humidity...

I'm going to say this. I get how in the vacuum that that truth social post and all that looks troubling, but having covered the Pentagon, the absolute vast majority of like Pentagon agit prop and stuff that they put out is like this. I get where you're coming from. Well,

People just know, like, this is standard fare for, like, Obama, for the first Trump administration. Basically, any time they're like, oh, the war fighters, the killers, the U.S. Army. Just so people know, that is what a very average U.S. Army propaganda video looks like. I don't doubt that that's the case. And you know what? Any of these things, well, not any of them, but some of these things individually, like the military parade. Yeah. If this is a normal administration and they're doing this weird asthma thing.

All right. I mean, it's a waste of money. Like, what are we doing? We're destroying the streets in D.C. They really don't need that. Well, it's shitty streets anyway, so maybe we can rebuild them properly. It's,

It's not great, but is it the end of the world? No. Coming in the context of everything else, that's where it becomes, you know, when you see the tanks being rolled into D.C. at the time when they're threatening the use of the National Guard, federalizing the National Guard in cities across the country. And they're deploying active duty Marines against U.S. citizens for like.

incredibly pretextual reasons over the objections of the elected governor of that state. And oh, by the way, they're threatening to arrest the elected governor of that state because he got elected. That's when I see things like that. And, you know, they add to a picture that is, to me, deeply troubling. And last thing I'll say, and then we can move on to Gavin Newsom and how he is certainly enjoying his moment in the sun with all of this. You know, there are some

There has been a pattern in this administration where it's not just this moment. It's the attacks on the universities. It's the, you know, trying to bring the media to heel. It's even the use of national emergency to justify this wild terror regime like

The consistent pattern in this administration has been consolidation of power, and it feels very much like we're coming to a crescendo with that. And also, Sagar, one other note of some of the context, which you've gestured at before, is the quote-unquote big, beautiful bill is rampant.

wildly unpopular. People see it as a giant giveaway to the rich because that's what it is. And so they're also trying to use this moment of large-scale anti-ICE protests

to make, to refashion and rebrand the big, beautiful bill as being about immigration. And you see Stephen Miller doing this aggressively, going after Rand Paul and the libertarians who are opposed to it and saying, basically, if you oppose this and you oppose border security, you oppose the president's agenda on immigration. So I think that is another one of the political goals.

that they are trying to effectuate here. There's no question. I genuinely, again, I don't know. I mean, we have polls yesterday. We covered immigration. Trump is the strongest issue. I saw a Quinnipiac poll more recently, showed him underwater. It's a little bit hard to believe. The numbers are a little bit too fantastical, but it wouldn't surprise me if he's moving towards more 50-50. But there's no question on the bill. I mean, I flagged it from day one. I'm like, look, they're going to do it and it's going to be massively unpopular.

Yeah. There's just I mean, that's what the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act story part of it was in the first term. We're basically writing up almost the exact same timeline with the passage of the so-called big, beautiful bill. And tying these two things together does give them a lot of cover for eventually going home and telling people what it's all about. But of course, America, look, Americans are smart, at least in this regard. Anytime a piece of tax legislation passes, they're like, hey, so what's in this exactly? They're like, oh, OK, got

it. You know, not a whole lot for me. What a surprise. And actually, even right now, there's all these stupid fights right now, even in the Senate, to make sure that they at least strip some of the decent parts out of the bill. So honestly, it can be a lot worse. They want to take out what tax on tips

They want to take out tax on tips or at least restrict it. And then even the salt cap, they want to make it to lower it even more to anger some of the blue states. It's just stuff like that where it's just preposterous. But can I say this? I actually was reading about the new salt thing. It's not a terrible thing.

Basically, the income raise it so that people who are like upper middle class earners in California and in New York are at least like grandfathered into a more modest thing. So it applies to the millionaires but not to upper middle class people. I'm like, okay, I think that's relevant.

fine. Yeah, that's not bad. I just say that. I just want people to know like the current way that this whole thing is structured, I actually think it's quite fair. The income cap at like $400,000 or something, basically making sure that high property tax people in New York and California don't get double screwed. Like, I think it's fine. At the same time, we're not all shedding tears for people making $300,000 or $400,000 a year. My point just being that the bill

The bill itself is deeply unpopular. A lot of what is all happening with this is effectively like a gambit to distract. But, you know, what we will soon talk about looms over all of this is Iran. And actually, that is where I would be the most worried. And this is my great hope, and I'll say it again, but, you know,

if there is some sort of outbreak of conflict, then I would hope that people really do take to the streets the way that they did with the war in Iraq. Don't forget, millions of people took to the streets across the world to protest that war. And that is also where we could see significant, you know,

and the weaponization of this great so-called anti-Semitism machine against people, and if those two things are conflated, saying that war with Iran is bad because it is anti-Semitic, that's probably where I worry the most, especially with conflict on the horizon right now.

Well, I do have some good news for you, which is that Mr. Salt himself, Josh Gottheimer, handed to him in the Democratic primary, came in fourth place with 11 percent of the vote. So, you know, he thought he was really killing it. Well, those 11 percent, you know, that's that that is those are the rich people in New Jersey. I guess. Yeah. His constituents showed up. They love him. And I'm sure they'll give him more campaign funds in the future anyway.

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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players...

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Newsom really coming into the Trump administration kind of misread the moment with regard to the Democratic base. We talked about this before. He launched his podcast, seeing, okay, it's the podcast moment. I'm going to launch my podcast. And then he had on people from the right, like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. And Gavin Newsom is actually a very good debater. Like, I'm not a big fan of Gavin Newsom, but you have to, you know, acknowledge political talent where it exists. He did a great job in that debate versus Ron DeSantis. That was, you know,

very well received among the Democratic base, got a lot of attention, et cetera. So he has the chops to do it. And instead, he invites on Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon and basically like lets them berate him. And he just sort of like takes it and is like, oh, I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

Democratic base at that point, we're looking for people who are willing to fight. So that's how Bernie ends up, you know, wildly popular at the base. AOC ends up wildly popular at the base. Jasmine Crockett has her moment and becomes, you know, this national figure, et cetera. So he wildly misreads the moment. And obviously everyone knows this man has been dreaming of being president for probably his whole life, being the like sort of sociopathic individual that he is. So he misreads things at the beginning. Now Trump has handed him this opportunity

you know, very large opportunity in the national spotlight to stand up to Trump in the way that a Democratic base and a lot of independent voters, I think, want to see. And in a lot of ways, I do think he has met that moment. At the same time, other Democrats are like, I mean, the Democratic Party is just so utterly pathetic. I've read this thing, Sagar, about how they're not sure whether they should pick this fight with Trump and they don't know if this is the place to stand. It might just be a distraction. It's like, cool.

Could you just have some principle that you're willing to stand for without taking a fucking focus group poll tested situation before you know what to say? Like, it's so pathetic and disgusting to me. And it serves Gavin Newsom because then he ends up being the only one out there in the spotlight. So all of that being said, Harry Enten and CNN took a look at the Google search traffic and how this is all playing into Newsom's 2028 ambitions. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.

Yeah, let's just start off. If Gavin Newsom wanted to take on Donald Trump and loves the attention, he has 100% gotten it. Take a look here. Google searches of Gavin Newsom with Donald Trump. Get this up. 9,700% versus a week ago. More folks are Googling Gavin Newsom's name with Donald Trump than ever before in Google searches dating all the way back since 2004.

Donald Trump was able to make a name for himself through The Apprentice, through all of his business ventures. He is now making a name for Gavin Newsom, who seems more than willing to relish in this fight. Should Democrats oppose Donald Trump more among Democrats? Look at this.

84 percent, 84 percent of Democrats nationwide say they want Democrats to take on Donald Trump. This is not 2017 anymore where the majority of Democrats want to compromise with Donald Trump. No, they want a fighter with Donald Trump. Top chances to be the 2028 nominee. Look, it's a

clown car at this particular point. All these candidates squished together, but you'll notice that one name is ahead of the rest, and that's Gavin Newsom at 12%. You see Ocasio-Cortez, 10, Buttigieg, 10, Shapiro, 6%. But Gavin Newsom certainly is up there right now in terms of the candidates who are best in position to get that 2028 nomination.

And this is concerning to me because I'm not a Gavin Newsom fan, you know, in terms of how he's governed in California. Basically, if there's a conflict between core Democratic-based principles, things like supporting labor unions or expanding health care and donors, he's going with the donors. That's kind of the way you should understand his governance. So

So the fact that I think he is doing himself a lot of favors with the Democratic base, and I have to say, like, has been much more responsive on social media. He really does sort of understand, Sarah, the new media ecosystem a lot better than other Democrats. I was talking about that with Ryan. I was like, look at this dude. His first interviews, I see Brian Tyler Cohen and Midas Touch. Smart, right? Pod Save America. We asked him for an interview, by the way. Yeah, he turned us down. Yeah.

We tried. We tried. You wanted to stay with the solidly liberal corner. It's annoying because – But, I mean, that's what the right does too. I mean, we'd be annoying about it. I'm just – I don't know. I don't know.

We'd ask him some real questions. Yeah, I would ask him some real questions. Whatever, we can table that. Actually, Gavin's staff and I, back in the day, actually had a decent exchange. So they should know I have been fair to them. He follows me on Twitter, so I thought maybe there was a chance. All right, well, California is our largest audience. So California, many of you are constituents of Gavin. So tell Gav to listen to the people. I doubt he will. That's not exactly how things work over there. No, I do think he's actually handling himself quite well. I've always been a newsome person.

admirer for his sheer political talent. I think he is clowned in very unfair ways. Like, I mean, I remember I just thought there was no way French Laundry would ever happen. And like, I don't, I was like, there's no way that he doesn't, that he gets away with this. But he survived, not only survived the recall election, since then has

broadly like popular-ish. She understands new media. And I think one of the things I underestimated is, look, California is a machine state. The machine produces a lot of horrible politicians. But in general, we shouldn't underestimate the governor of the most popular state in the entire union. That has been a mistake. One of the largest economies

Literally one of the largest economies in the world. I mean, people underestimated Richard Nixon for being from California. People underestimated Ronald Reagan from being from California. Like, California looms large over our politics, always has for a long time. And I think that with Gavin Newsom, that is where his sheer political talent, which was on display with that debate with Trump,

Again, you can debate like, oh, did he score a point here or there like on the merits? It's not really about that. It's really about his affectation. And the thing I've always said about Gavin is Gavin loves the game more than anything else in the world. He's got the black hole inside of him.

That's what you need. You know, why else are you going on Sean Hannity's show? That's nuts. Like, why are you texting Sean Hannity during his live broadcast? You know, like quibbling with some of the things that Sean says because you have to be obsessed with yourself and you have to need that affirmation more than anything else in the world. And that,

You can't teach that. Like, you have to just be born with it. And so I really see that inside of him, and especially now, like, with the way the stars are aligning. Gavin is learning, you know, that Steve Mann and Charlie Kirk stuff that he was doing in the very beginning. That's really not the most politically effective strategy. And he will now really align himself as, like, a major resistance figure.

And he doesn't have the baggage that Karen Bass has. That's another critical thing. Karen is so horribly, you know, just scarred by those fires. But Gavin is the real leader of the liberal resistance right now. True. And he just has more whatever than she has, too. Yeah. I mean, he—here's the thing that I'm concerned about. The Democratic base—

Actually, Democratic congressional leaders are underwater with the base. That is very different from Trump 1.0. They have been radicalized in a lot of regards. They are disgusted with the Chuck Schumers and Hakeem Jeffries and the people who capitulated. And Gavin Newsom was very much putting himself in that camp with the way that he approached those interviews with Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. At first, when I saw his lineup for initial podcast guests, I thought it could be

really benefit him if he was going to go in and really spar with them. I mean, it doesn't have to be vicious, but if he was going to get into an exchange and have these viral moments, like that would have been really smart. What I'm concerned about with the Democratic base is, well, they want a fighter and someone who's standing up to Trump. There is a kind of like ideological

neutrality. It's not like they specifically want a particular policy agenda. They just want people who get caught fighting. And that's where if you have someone like a Gavin Newsom or a Pete Buttigieg for that matter, who are good at going into spaces on Fox News and tussling with them and good at doing the performance of standing up to Trump. And again, I hand it to Gavin. I think he's doing a good job in this moment of standing up for California, standing up for his values, not backing down, all of those sorts of things.

I think that, you know, that could be a, you know, that could be something that a Democratic base would be interested in, even though on the merits in terms of what they offer policy wise, it's like just more of the same sort of status quo liberal type politicians. So in any case, he gave his big like sort of primetime address. Put this up on the screen. The New York Times analyzed this as having a 2028 subtext, which I think you would have to, you know, be pretty optimistic.

silly and naive not to see. They lead this off with when Gavin Newsom stepped in front of a camera Tuesday evening. He was a California governor addressing his constituents. But by the time Mr. Newsom was finished, it was clear the governor was speaking not only to his state, but to his country and his beleaguered party. To Democrats looking for direction and leadership, Mr. Newsom used one of the highest profile moments of his political career to lay out the threat that he argued President Trump posed the nation and how Americans should resist it. And he suggested he was the man to lead that

fight. Democracy is under assault right before our eyes, Mr. Newsom said. The moment we have feared has arrived. And as I said before, the fact that other Democrats are not so much stepping up to the plate to defend California in a non-aggressive way and, you know, are

wary of picking this fight with Trump and whatever, it really has allowed him to grab and capitalize on the moment. And then to the point of the way he's using social media in a much more sort of direct way, tussling with Stephen Miller and other various Trump officials, even going back and forth with, you know, sort of like influencer types on the right and asserting, you know, his position and all of these things in real time. He also posted this

this Star Wars, I guess, not meme, but of reading the emperor reading one of Trump's stories. Let's go ahead and take a listen to this.

"A once great American city, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals. Now violent insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our federal agents to try and stop our deportation operations."

Sagar thought it was kind of cringe. I don't know. I thought it was kind of good. I thought it was clever. I thought it was pretty clever. Anything political Star Wars is cringe. Listen, I love Star Wars, all right? Like we were talking earlier, Andor is awesome. Tony Gilroy is absolutely goat status. But unfortunately, when politicians try to invoke the evil empire or any of that stuff, it just, it absolutely doesn't work for me. I will also acknowledge it's the most basic level of like memification on the internet when talking about big stuff. So I have to only assume it will largely go over

well with a lot of people. You can always assume the worst in terms of his popularity. I do think broadly, him...

and Pete Buttigieg are handling himself very well. It kills me to say it, it kills me to say, to watch these two people. But I didn't have enough of a chance to talk about Buttigieg on "Flagrant." I mean, he did well. - He did well. - Like, it got millions of views. There's a viral video of him where Andrew's like, "So what do you want?" And he's like, "I want you to be able to get up in the morning "and be able to go to work." I mean, it was everywhere.

And, you know, it led to there's a new New York Times profile about some of the broadcasters or whatever, but it mentions that interview with Andrew Schultz specifically. We had Bernie Sanders. That was more recently there as well. You know what I mean? These are the people who understand the current media environment, and they also, you know, they're willing to take risks. That's something we talked about yesterday on the Theo Vaughn segment. It's like just take a risk. Like, you know, Schultz was making like hooker jokes at one point and going,

Buttigieg is clearly uncomfortable, but it's like, yeah, it's part of it. And a lot of people just don't want to sit there and they don't want to take it. But with risk comes reward. Trump showed us that's a very effective communication strategy, and it's definitely one that should be cemented now at this time. So, yeah, I don't know. Both of them have that annoying-ass Obama cadence, which to me should be disqualifying from the jump, just on that alone, let alone their status quo neoliberal politics. But, I mean, I will put that in there, especially with Gavin.

There is just something about him that reads used car salesman. Absolutely. He does read just like typical slimy politician. That's just the vibe you get from him. I've always thought he looks like a vampire from a movie. And so, you know, it's not a lock-in, but he's certainly using this moment to the greatest effect that he possibly can to bolster his chances in 2028. Absolutely.

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We're very excited now to be joined by Murtaza Hussain. He is a national security and foreign affairs correspondent for Dropsite News, great friends of the show. It's good to see you, man. Thank you for joining us. Hey, good to see you guys. All right. Well, you join us at a very, very consequential time, my friend. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. We have major developments across the Middle East, CBS News and multiple other outlets reporting, quote, Israel is poised to launch an operation on Iran. So Maz, what we know so far

from inside the administration, is that this is being sold allegedly as Israel is poised to strike Iran without U.S. approval. But it appears, of course, the U.S. at least has some forewarning, its own intelligence, perhaps even at diplomatic channels. Things are all over the place in terms of what's actually happening. There has been widespread now evacuation, or at least voluntarily evacuation, of the departure of

dependence in the U.S. military bases across the region. President Donald Trump has reacted very ominously. I'm going to play this, and then we're going to get your reaction. Let's take a listen. Could you provide an update on Iran? We're hearing reports that U.S. personnel are being moved out of the region within striking distance. Well, they are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place, and we'll see what happens. But they are being, we've given notice to move out, and we'll see what happens.

Is there anything that can be done to dial the temperature down in the region? They can't have a nuclear weapon. Very simply, they can't have a nuclear weapon. We're not going to allow that. Why are U.S. dependents of military personnel being authorized to leave the Middle East? Some ominous stuff there, Maz. He's basically like, yeah, could be a dangerous place. So combined with the Israel reporting, what can you tell us?

Yeah, it's unfortunate because about a month and a half ago, it seemed like the situation was much more optimistic. And I think I would attribute the change to changing statements from Steve Wyckoff and people in Congress as well, too. At the start of the process, Wyckoff was saying that the U.S. would be OK with the Iranians having low-level nuclear enrichment for civilian purposes, which would then be monitored and so forth by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

And the Iranians are okay with that. They don't necessarily want a nuclear bomb per se. They could have pursued one some years ago, but there are great costs associated with having a bomb. It would piss off many of their neighbors separate from the U.S. It would probably start an arms race in the Middle East as well, too. It could trigger war, at least for a short term, with the U.S. or other parties.

So they have said they don't want a bomb, but they don't want to dismantle their entire nuclear energy program, which they spend many, many years building. It's an issue of national pride as well, too. So Wyckoff now is taking a very, very expressing or conveying a very, very maximalist position, which is kind of like the Libya issue.

position. People remember Libya agreed to dismantle its entire putative capacity for developing everything which even could be a WMD. And that didn't end very well for Libya. It wasn't a very advisable path, if you look at it from the Libyan's perspective. That's a really polite way of saying getting sodomized on television. Let's be honest about what happened here.

Yeah, the Libyans agreed to dismantle and then they were attacked and their leadership was killed and driven to exile and many terrible things. So the Iranians do not want to repeat that. So effectively, we have a situation where the U.S. red line that's currently publicly expressed in the Iranian red line is incommensurate. The U.S. is saying now that they can't have any enrichment at all. The Iranians say we'll never give up our enrichment. So in this case, it creates a situation where a conflict

would become inevitable unless one side were to compromise or back down. And I think what we saw the last couple of days are attempts to maybe do psychological operations, saying that the Israelis are going to attack you if you don't compromise on this subject. But what we've seen so far, the Iranians do not seem to be backing down per se. Today, they escalated quite a bit, saying that they may withdraw from their positions.

nuclear treaties and take other steps in response to that as well, too. So I think, unfortunately, we've had a situation where a deal was very, very attainable. But now, at least the last 48 hours, it seemed a lot less so.

And Maz, how do you assess the likelihood that Israel will strike Iran? Obviously, you have the personnel being pulled from the region. That's one indication. You also have various people now going out and saying, oh, they're really close to, you know, achieving a nuclear weapon, which we always hear, you know, before the war drums start beating. So how likely do you think it is that we are on the precipice of some sort of Israeli action, also given the fact that it appears Trump has said,

several, a couple of times during the course of this negotiation, sort of pushed them off and said, no, you can't strike Iran at this point. Yeah. You know, the Israeli modus operandi is usually to strike when people are not expecting it and not to telegraph. It's happening beforehand. So what you see in the last couple of days is a tremendous amount of signaling and telegraphing, which makes me think this is more, at least for now, psychological. They're not necessarily preparing for an imminent attack.

But, you know, there are talks scheduled for this weekend between the U.S. and Iran in Oman. And based on what happens in those talks, the situation could change. But I think if the Israelis do attack or someone does attack, there won't be this lead up that's very, very public where they're issuing statements publicly and evacuating people in a very, very –

you know, notable manner. I think they're going to strike, try to use the element of surprise as much as possible. But I think the thing is the Iranians, if they really do believe that, uh, the Israelis or even the U S is going to attack them, they're gonna take preparations beforehand. They're going to try to move as much nuclear material out of the, uh, likely to be targeted sites beforehand. Uh,

They may withdraw from certain treaties or expel inspectors so they can take their nuclear materials completely into private. So actually, you know, even from the perspective, if you want to stop an Iranian nuclear weapon, attacking is kind of a really bad option because the Iranians, it's a huge country, first of all. It's almost 90 million people. It's a very, very big landmass.

It's not like Iraq. It's much, much more challenging than Iraq to attack for foreign country. And if they withdraw from these treaties, there's not really much you can do. You can maybe attack them once, but then how do you even have to keep attacking them forever, really, to figure out where the nuclear materials are? The knowledge won't be taken out of the country. It'll still be there. You may have to invade the country even to stop or to root out the new suspected nuclear sites.

Attacking Iran would not be a one-off affair. It wouldn't be a week long or a couple of days or even a month. It would probably take the entire Trump term or even longer beyond that, being involved militarily in the country if you really want to stop the nuclear program, if they withdraw from the treaties.

So I think that a deal really does satisfy everyone's needs. It satisfies their own need to maintain some civilian program. The Trump administration wants to pivot to China, doesn't want to have more wars in the Middle East. I think the American public is very, very exhausted and disenchanted with this. So a deal really is the path of least resistance.

But because I think that maybe a poison pill has been imported in this deal based on what we've seen with Witkoff's evolution of statements, its move from agreeing to civilian enrichment and nothing, I think the people in the U.S. who do want a war and they successfully put that –

change of position in. But it's not really a good solution for anybody. It's bad for Iranians, bad for Americans, bad for Israelis even to have the major war with Iran for many, many years. But that's the path we're on right now, barring some heroic diplomacy on Sunday. Well, we can talk about that. So at the

very least, there were initial comments that were made that there would be no more or not a sixth round of talks. Now, fortunately for us, we can put this up on the screen. The Omani foreign minister confirmed that talks will happen between Steve Witkoff and between Iran's

foreign minister. However, Maz, at the same time, we do know that Israel's head of Mossad and their minister, Ron Dermer, will be meeting with Steve Witkoff apparently ahead of said meeting, again, potentially for some coordination of what exactly we don't know. But this last round of talks seems very,

very critical because of the position where U.S. intelligence now saying that Israel is basically poised to strike Iran. There's a lot of pressure on the Iranians in the U.S. there. What is your assessment? If this does not come to some decent conclusion in this round, is it even possible that

for us to have another round? Or are we going to see the prelude to, like you said, withdrawing from agreements? I believe Iran just got rebuked this morning by the IAEA over nuclear materials. So things do seem to be trending in a very bad direction unless things go well during these talks.

This is a problem, too, that Mossad officials and Ron Dermott have been hovering around the talks from the beginning. They've been in Rome. They've been wherever the talks are happening. They're either briefing Wyckoff beforehand or just being in the area to let them know that their position is very, very important in these talks. So, you know, to be honest, I'm not particularly optimistic, unfortunately, about the Sunday talks or the talks this weekend. It seemed like a last ditch effort. And, you know, there is strong opposition.

There are strong motivations for both sides to come to some detente. War is not good for the Iranians. War is not good for the U.S. either. I don't think the Trump administration or space wants to see another war like this. But they've kind of boxed themselves in a situation where it's almost, you know, I wouldn't say inevitable, but it's become much more likely than it needs to be. I think that these talks, they're maybe the last—

to see if any sort of compromise agreement can be found. And if not, you could see Israeli strikes in Iran. But the issue is, you know, if Israel does it alone, quote unquote, it would still have tremendous U.S. intelligence, logistic, and other support. But also, it's very, very likely that the fortified, uh,

nuclear positions that Iran has cannot be destroyed by Israeli aircraft or munitions. They need American B-2s and 30,000-pound bombs to actually destroy these. So almost inevitably, the Israeli attacks most likely will do insufficient damage to the Iranian sites, and the U.S. would feel compelled to become involved. And if the Iranians retaliate, which they said they will, that would also create great pressure for the U.S. to get involved to defend Israel as well, too, from those attacks.

So I think, unfortunately, even though nobody wants it, everyone's so fed up with wars in the Middle East, we're really headed towards a situation where not just a war in the Middle East, but the biggest war we've ever had in the Middle East could be right on our doorstep just in a few weeks. So I think that people in the administration or supportive, have communication with the administration should sort of impress as much as they can that,

how close we are, how unnecessary it all is, and how important this diplomacy this weekend and potentially beyond is to avoid what could be a very, very disastrous situation. Last question that I have for you, Maz. The Trump administration's trying to posture like, oh, Israel might strike Iran. We have nothing to do with it. Let's say they maintain that posture. Israel does strike Iran. Is anyone going to believe that we had nothing to do with it, that this was just Israel acting of their own accord?

I don't think so. There's very, very obvious close coordination with the U.S. and Israel. Also, the U.S. arms Israel. All the arms come from the U.S. And if Israel were to purchase those arms, it would be privatively expensive, actually, for them to carry out the operations they are right now. So there is not really the great acceptance of that. But that said, of course, Iran would like to avoid a direct confrontation with the U.S.,

It said it would target American bases if the U.S. attacked it. But if there's some plausible deniability, it's kind of useful for both sides to say, well, it was between us and the Israelis, technically. But that said, I do think for the technical reasons I laid out, there is a very strong involvement, even if initially it's only the Israelis directly carrying out the strikes.

that the Americans could become, the U.S. military could become involved in the conflict directly, simply to, only the U.S. military can really destroy these sites, or has a greater chance of doing so

And if and when the Iranians retaliate, the political pressure in the US to step in to defend Israel, to attack more sites inside Iran with American military weaponry, it will be great. And the Israelis, they do punch above the weight for their size, but Iran's a much bigger country than Israel. And really, to balance the scales, the Israelis need America to be involved in the war. And I think the entire strategy of Netanyahu and Dermot and so forth is

to force America into a conflict because they feel they can't do it alone. They can't achieve what they want to alone. And they really need America to be involved in wars in the Middle East for at least another generation, I would say. We already have the playbook, right? They blew up an embassy and then the Iranians struck back. And guess who shot down 99% of the incoming projectiles? Not them, right? It's like this has already happened.

In fact, that was, you know, the groundwork for this right now. And by the way, if it costs $1 billion just to shoot down some silly drones and a couple of missiles, what do you think is going to happen if they actually hit nuclear centrifuges and we see real stuff start flying through the air? This is not a joke, as you said, and part of the reason why we see this widespread now evacuation of deployments

dependent military forces. I mean, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem is telling people, don't leave the country now for some time. They are taking this very, very seriously, and they don't just do this for no reason. Anyway, we really appreciate your analysis. I, you know, I hope you're not right. I think you are. You know, I think these weekends talks are genuine make or break.

And I guess we should all just start talking about how Trump is the greatest diplomatic figure and we should give him the Nobel Prize. I will personally fly to Stockholm. Back in the deal. Yeah, right. He got us out of. Please just get us get us a deal. Do something. Because otherwise, you know, we're headed for bad, bad waters. Thank you so much for joining us, my friend. Thanks, Max. Appreciate it.

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