6/23/25: Trump Threatens Iran Regime Change, Iran Floats Hormuz Shutdown, Scott Horton Debunks Nuke Lies
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Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our

full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. - We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? - We have two absolute giants booked to join us in this show. So I am extremely excited to speak with Scott Horton about the reality of the Iranian nuclear ambitions. He can do some debunking for us there. So very excited to speak with him.

And we are also going to be talking to Professor John Mearsheimer about the geostrategic implications of all of this and how we got to this place in the first place. So really super psyched to talk to them. Before we get into that, we're going to break down all of the latest news with regard to our war and Israel's war with Iran. Trump has now gone from saying, you know, we destroyed all the nuclear sites to now the indications are we aren't. And, you know, we're going to talk about the nuclear war.

All the administration officials went out on the Sunday shows and said, there's no regime change here. And then Trump goes ahead and tweets on, eh, maybe we are going to do a regime change. So there is a whole lot to get into, a lot of moving parts also as we watch what Iran's potential retaliation could be. We're also going to spend some time taking a hard look at all of the intense media propaganda. Wild, wild stuff going on, especially on Fox News and CNN. So that is where we are going to focus. We're also going to take a look at the oftentimes controversial

utterly pathetic Democratic reaction and what is going on with the quote unquote opposition party. And then later today for premium subscribers, Sagar and I will be doing that AMA live. So if you want to be able to participate in those, make sure you sign up at breakingpoints.com. Thank you so much to everyone who has been supporting the show. One cool thing that we are going to get to do this week, Sagar, is Griffin and Ryan are going to New York. We're

New York City Democratic primary mayoral race, with the top two being Andrew Cuomo versus Zoran Mamdani, is going down this Tuesday. So we are going to be covering that live. And a new poll actually just came out this morning that has this from Emerson, that has Zoran leading, after you go through all the ranked choice rounds and whatever, 50

to 48. And now the polymarket betting odds, which were wildly in Cuomo's favor yesterday, have now completely flipped in favor of Zoran. So it's going to be a nail biter. Very interesting to see how this race goes down as sort of a canary in the coal mine of where the Democratic base is now. That's right. But thank you to our premium subscribers. That's where we're able to forward. We have them both on the

ground. They're going to be there in New York City. Hopefully be able to get some interviews with Zoran Mamdani as well as possibly Mahmoud Khalil, you know, maybe. Working on that, yeah. Working on these things. More accurately, Ryan is working. Ryan is working. Because Ryan knows someone who knows someone always.

He's the GOAT. What can we say? He is the greatest to ever do it. Thank you seriously to everybody who has been signing up, breakingpoints.com, if you're able to join us. We have a massive influx of new listeners and of new viewers, which we deeply appreciate. Guys, if you can't afford a membership right now, it's totally fine. Just do us a favor. Hit the subscribe button on YouTube, or if you're listening to this on a podcast, just go ahead and take your favorite episode. I heard a lot of people really enjoyed our episode immediately after the strikes. The

that happened in Iran, just text it to a friend if somebody's asking, hey, what is actually going on here? And hopefully we can help people sort throughout all of this. And so with that, good transition to what the hell is going on right now. - Yeah, well, I have a feeling that Scott Horton and Mearsheimer in the show today, today might be one of those favorite shows. It's one I'm certainly really excited to hear from both of those individuals. So let's go ahead and put A1 up on the screen here, guys. You just can't make this shit up. This is Donald Trump on Truth Social yesterday.

It's not politically correct to use the term regime change. But if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change? Question, question, question. And then he says, my God, my God.

make Iran great again instead of MAGA. You get that? You sure Iran is what stands in there? That's my best guess here. So, Sagar, before I even play, all of the administration students were sent out to say, oh, there's no regime change here before Trump completely undercuts them. I mean...

how quickly have they moved the goalposts? Yes. Right? It's just extraordinary. Like, first, oh, we're doing diplomacy. No, we don't want war. We just want diplomacy. Then, oh, this is great that Israel's striking. And, oh, we were not involved at all. And then the next day after Trump sees the Fox News coverage and how glowing it is, oh, of course, it was all us. We were totally involved. But then we actually, what we really want is diplomatic negotiation. So, you know, it's great Israel's doing their thing with us, but we really want diplomacy. And then,

And very quickly, that diplomacy, obviously, because some of the lead negotiators were murdered, falls apart. And then it's off to the races. So now we've gone from, oh, we're just going to drop a bomb on Fordow to, well, actually, you can't destroy the nuclear program just with bombing. So looky, looky, I guess we're going to have to do regime change and...

Your two hosts here called it all along. I would have loved to be wrong, but that's where we are. I wanted to be wrong. I really did. You know, I wanted to see something that really challenged all of my priors about U.S. intervention in the Middle East. But cynicism is ultimately the only thing that can be rewarded here. We started with Israel has got it.

All America has to do is give them the bombs. And then we're like, no, no, no, no. We just got to do one strike on these three facilities and then it's over. And now as we're going to get into for the rest of the show, actually turns out, yes, the strikes were, quote, successful, possibly knocking out

some of those facilities, but oh, the nuclear material itself is not there. It's going to go through a lot with Scott, which means what? Oh, maybe we're going to have to go back and continue this. As of this morning, the IDF has removed all pretenses of this being about the nuclear program. They are bombing regime targets, including, you know, political prisons or whatever from the Iranians or the

Apparently, Iran had some doomsday clock about when Israel was going to be destroyed, and they bombed that. Just in case you're all aware of what this is all really about. But with Trump, I mean, this really is a massive indictment of a lot of these MAGA influencers because the MAGA line for the last week has been trust President Trump. He's got this. He's not going to do regime change. He tweeted it.

it out. He just tweeted it out. Not only did he just tweet it out, he actually humiliated all three of his major, you know, national security officials who went on television all day to assure the American public and the Iranians, listen, we are not trying to do regime change here. And we look, if you want the evidence, I'm talking hours beforehand, vice president, JD Vance, national security advisor, secretary of state, Marco Rubio, SECDEF,

Pete Hegseth, they all said it over and over again. This is not about regime change, even though Trump literally said it is about regime change. Let's take a listen. Our view has been very clear that we don't want a regime change. We do not want to protract this or build this out any more than it's already been built out. We want to end their nuclear program, and then we want to talk to the Iranians

about a long-term settlement here. So this mission was a very precise mission. It had three objectives, three nuclear sites. It was not an attack on Iran. It was not an attack on the Iranian people. This wasn't a regime change move. This was designed to degrade and/or destroy three nuclear sites related to their nuclear weaponization ambitions.

Is regime change off the table, Mr. Secretary? And to the chairman, you said the battle damage assessment is still ongoing, but do you believe that some nuclear capability in Iran remains? This mission was not and has not been about regime change.

It's not about regime change. We're not doing regime change. Don't worry about it. It's not regime. And the reason why is because they're like, maybe we can come to some agreement with the Iranians. So the Iranians now have, look, whether it's true or not, at this point, the narrative is diplomacy was a ruse. And then it was, listen,

and we have nothing to do with this. This was only Israel. Now, actually, we did bomb you, but this is just about the nuclear sites. It's not about anything else. So now Trump is saying, so why would you want to negotiate with Trump? Like, at this point, let's put yourself in the strategic empathy

You don't have to like Iran. You don't have to like the regime. Put yourself in their shoes. What would you do? What would you do? And we'll continue with these statements from U.S. policymakers. It's just preposterous. And also, I mean, I know we're going to get to this, but I want to preview this. The Trump speech is one of the most – it will live in history as one of the most extraordinary speeches in the U.S.-Israel relationship ever.

of all time. I mean, he literally tied the United States of America and Israel together. He thanked Prime Minister Netanyahu before he thanked the US Air Force service members who dropped the bombs on Iran. He said, "God bless Israel" before "God bless America." This is, the game is up.

in terms of what this is all about. I mean, this is Israel's war. This is America's war. Donald Trump, our president, has chosen to fuse those two things together. And he is betting his entire presidency on this. Will it work out for him? I mean, he's got better political instincts than me. But at the very least, for a lot of other people out there, if you deluded yourself into thinking that there was some independence or whatever, maybe that was true at one point.

I do not believe it to be true at all anymore. Donald Trump has made his choice to die is absolutely cast. You know, Sagar, I was thinking about this and I have empathy, especially for people who, you know, were looking at the genocide in Gaza and were like, I can't vote for a ticket that was part of this. And so they wanted to believe that maybe Trump would be different. And one of the analyses that was offered is

Biden is a dyed-in-the-wool Zionist. Like, he's actually ideologically committed to the project, whereas Trump is purely transactional. But you know what? That should have been a red flag for us because no one's going to play the transactional game better than the Israel lobby. That's right. And that's just a fact. You know, that's a very insightful thing. And that's actually really—one day we'll do, like, a full retrospective on how we got here. And there's a big, big reason why this is all happening, and it's a big part.

of that. Yeah, because if you actually have some sort of principle, even if your principle is like, I love Israel and I want what's best for Israel, this is not in the long run going to be best for Israel. I mean, people around the world hate this country now, right? You cannot bomb your way to safety and security.

So there is even if you have any sort of ideological principle you're willing to stick to, there is some sort of limits that you may eventually put, as we've seen with other American presidents, by the way, who have at the end of the day said, you know what? It's too far. It's too much. We're done here.

But with Trump, because he's just for sale to the highest bidder, then you don't have any sort of a limiting principle. And that's how you end up. You know, this is John McCain's fondest wish. Like people are sharing this meme of him. His former advisors are saying that. I'm not joking. His son-in-law, Ben Dominick, literally is like, this is his. Look, I take it from his family. All right. Like, listen, absolutely true. Yeah. Lindsey Graham's the John McCain's the John Bolton's. They are getting the Bill Kristol's. Yes, they are getting their fondest.

wish right now through this president who dared both in 2016 and in 2024 who dared to posture as being anti-war and is now already like

put us into a regime change war in the Middle East, the exact thing that he would have had us believe he would never do, even as he spoke out of both sides of his mouth. He'd say that, and then he'd also say we should bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities. So people heard what they wanted to hear ultimately, and the record spoke for itself from the first term where he was extremely hawkish and also risked direct hot war with Iran after assassinating Qasem Soleimani. But we're going

to spend some more time tomorrow, probably on all of the MAGA influencer cope, because you could spend a long time talking about the way that these people have shifted and the mental gymnastics that are going on here. But let me just give you one example, because it fits with what Sagar was saying about the evolution here of their talking points and the evolution here of what the administration has been trying to sell us. So Charlie Kirk originally starts off with like, we shouldn't be in war with Iran. And then once it's

clear that we are, then it's, well, we shouldn't directly bomb Iran. And then once we do that, then it's, well, we shouldn't do regime change and have boots on the ground. Now, once Trump comes out and says, hey, why not regime change? Let's make Iran great again. Now we get this from Charlie Kirk.

Parsing of the different varieties of regime change. A bottom-up revolution rises from the will of the people. A top-down regime change is engineered by elites and the intel community. One is organic. The other is orchestrated and forced. The line is very thin, and we must proceed extremely carefully before you know it. We could be in a situation like Libya. Press.

President Trump is talking about an organic uprising. Oh, is he? As he's bombing Iran, he's talking about this is all just organic. America cannot get involved in a forceful decapitation effort in Persia. So the number of times he has already shifted the goalposts here to now we're parsing the nuances of which type of regime change he thinks Trump ultimately means is just absolutely incredible to see.

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This speech from Trump?

Honestly, I was shocked because I thought he would be on his game with regard to this messaging. It's not hard to convince them. Sadly, it's not hard to convince the American people to bomb someplace that they've never been to. OK, that's just the sad fact of the matter based on my entire life experience. So if you say Iran has a nuke, we had to go in there and stop it. We dropped the

bombs. It's done. It's over. God bless America. We've preserved our American interests. You know what? I'm sorry to say there's a large amount of Americans that at least at the jump would be like, you know what? I get it. Okay. We had to tell you there was a dangerous situation. They were going to bomb Missouri or New York was going to be next or whatever the hell they were being sold on Fox News, primarily in CNN as well. That's really not what he said. And he also threatened more bellicosity and really made it clear this wasn't really about our interests. It was

real interesting. I mean, he really didn't even try to hide that in this speech. The other piece optically is he's got Rubio, Hegseth and J.D. Vance behind him, you know, which was a way of sort of projecting that he's brought the, you know, J.D. Vance is supposedly the

highest level, like non-interventionists in the administration. Hegseth was also supposedly had learned his lesson, blah, blah, blah. Rubio has always been a neocon, but we had also been sold some like, oh, maybe he's changed his ways here too. So by having them there behind him while he's announcing this, it's basically a way of sort of like publicly humiliating and demonstrating that they've all been brought to heel. In any case, let's go ahead and take a listen to a sampling of what he had to say in that speech.

A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.

Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before. And we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.

I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done. With all of that being said, this cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal.

But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. So he threatens additional action. And he says something there, Sagar. He says Iran's key nuclear facilities were completely and totally obliterated. That is not the case. The administration is no longer even claiming that that is the case. You can put this next.

satellite images up here on the screen. This is Isfahan. You can see certainly damage which has occurred here. But the big question too was Fordow, which is the nuclear facility buried under the mountain that there was a lot of discussion of prior to this bombing. Let's put the next one up on the screen. And you can see the before and the after here.

you know, it's actually a little bit difficult to tell exactly where the bombs dropped and what happened. But all of the indications that we're getting from the Israelis and from the Americans at this point is, yes, there was significant damage, but these nuclear facilities are not completely and totally obliterated, as he said. Not to mention now we're getting these pieces of like, oh, and there. But did you know there's other really even more important nuclear facilities?

And oh, by the way, and here's Natanz, you can see the before and after there. And oh, by the way, they, because there was so much projection of like, we're going to do this, or maybe we're going to do this, or maybe we're not going to do this. The Iranians moved their stockpile of enriched uranium to some secret site that, you know,

I don't think we have awareness of. Maybe we have awareness of where it is. But the ostensible goal here of making it impossible for them, at least in the medium term, to race towards a bomb has been a failure. Now, reminder...

our intelligence community and the IAEA say they were not trying to develop a nuclear weapon, that that wasn't something that they had in mind, that if they did decide to, it would take years for them to develop not only that weapon, but the capability to deliver it. But, you know, now we've changed the calculus where because of the aggressive

actions of the Israelis and of now ourselves as well, there is a lot of logic. And I'm sure talk to Mearsheimer about this later. There's a lot of logic in place for Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon. So that's where we are. The Trump administration is defining terms in complete stupidity because they're like the sites have been obliterated. And it's like, OK, well, it's not really about the sites, right? It's about the ability to weaponize a nuclear bomb, right? And that means it's about the uranium stockpile.

Let's go and put the next part up there on the screen. And there's also some further stuff that gets into it. It says the Iranian Fordow site looks to be severely damaged but not destroyed. But furthermore, and this is the most important thing, basically, U.S. officials now concede they do not know the fate of the Iranian uranium stockpile.

And that the current assessment is that almost all of it, and especially according to the Iranians, was moved out of these places before. In fact, there is a arms control expert who I religiously followed. I have for 10 years on the North Korean nuclear program and more. And his current analysis is that not only does Iran not have –

its access to this uranium stockpile. But then there are several other facilities which are more recently built, of which the IAEA has not ever been inspected. They don't even know where they are, secret facilities and more, where they fully have the capacity to take this 60% uranium and enrich it to 90% if they wish to do so. As you just said, and we'll talk to Mearsheimer about, there has never been more strategic logic to have that happen. And in fact, there's already satellite imagery showing

and other Iranian facilities that were going there before the strikes, maybe two or three days beforehand, and moving it out of there. Now, you may ask why the world's most moral and credible military, Israel, while they're bombing doomsday clocks, doesn't have the capacity apparently to bomb those trucks or to say, hey, why are these big trucks capable of using nuclear material there?

Yeah, you may want to question that, including with the United States. This is the problem, is that now the stage is set for what? More strikes. Because like, oh, well, we didn't get it here. So actually we got to go back and we got to go get this, quote, nuclear material. And look, it's going to be the same logic.

Israel doesn't have the bunker busters. They don't have the capacity. They actually hit Fordow again this morning, similarly trying to take out other things on the side. And again, begs the question, it's like, well, if we destroyed it, then why did they have to go back and hit it again? Look to the actions, not to the words. And because the actions tell us the entire story. And the story is clear. Also, I would show why the quote, MIGA tweet is so damaging. What did J.D. say in there? He said, we're not at war with Iran, which

Bullshit, whatever. Okay, let's move past that. We're not at war with Iran. - We're at war with their nuclear facility. - We're not at war with Iran. We're at war with their nuclear program. Then we want to come to an agreement. Now that agreement would be about this uranium stockpile, but we don't even know where that is. I'm telling you, this is leaked. US intelligence officials, other officials, the IAEA, they're saying, "We have no clue. "We don't know where it all went." Well, how do you get that? This is basically like the same Iraq playbook. The whole reason why boots on the ground and all that had to happen

not just for a regime change. It was sold to the American public as we have to go and secure it ourselves. What, Israel's going to go and secure it? The great geniuses in the IDF? Yeah, I'm sure that some 19-year-old reservists who have now spent two years just like happy shooting around in Gaza are very proficient at being able—

No, of course, it'd be only the U.S. military. And we haven't even gotten into Iranian retaliation. But I actually realized we hadn't even played that J.D. thing. So just so you guys can take a listen and to show how damaging the make Iran great again regime change declaration was from Donald Trump, it directly undermines his alleged policy and actually makes it clear what the real policy is. Take a listen. Is the United States now at war with Iran?

No, Kristen, we're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program. And let me just say, Kristen, that we're incredibly grateful and proud of the American Air Force pilots who did an incredible job last night. The operation was really extraordinary.

I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long drawn out thing. We've got in

We've done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We're going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years. And that is what the president has set out to do.

You can see it clear. He said that's what the president – and also, oh, we had dumb presidents or whatever in the past. I mean if that's the level of argumentation that we've been reduced to, it again comes back to trust Trump. You should not trust Trump. By the way, and this is the other thing, the neocons didn't trust Trump. When Steve Witkoff and it looked like negotiations and all that would happen, what were they doing? They were like he's a Qatari traitor, all this. Mark Levin was on TV. He's like, Mr. President, you've got to abandon this country.

policy, they didn't trust him. They were a thorn in his side and they won. That's why, because it was an overwhelming pressure campaign. Now, look, again, Trump's intentions, we'll never truly know what all of this is, but at a certain point, it really doesn't matter again because of the actions. So where things stand as of some, what, 36 hours, we're

post-strike are very clear, is the Fordow facility and others, they appear to be, quote, severely damaged. We do not yet know where the stockpile is. We do have current indications that the Israelis continue their regime change operations. We have Donald Trump himself who has declared regime change is a possibility that he'd be very okay with if not wanting to affect. And we have

all of the pieces in place to continue more airstrikes on Iran, if not a call for some sort of U.S. intervention. And all of this is before the Iranians have even responded to the United States, which, of course, is an open possibility, a dangerous one, and looks all the more likely right now. Yeah, that's exactly right.

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So let's move to the indications there. We just got word this morning from Qatar. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen, guys. This is from the State Department. They say, out of an abundance of caution, we recommend American citizens shelter in place until further notice.

So some dire indications there coming out of the State Department. Let's go and put this next piece up on the screen there. This is A7 guys coming out of the Times of Israel. So they're claiming Netanyahu has some interesting intel on the whereabouts of Iran's 60 percent enriched uranium. What do you make of this piece? Sagar, you buy this? No, of course I don't buy it.

Because, look, I mean, they can claim whatever they would like. It's clear that their military didn't actually be up to the job. And they knew it from the very beginning. They knew from day one they would never actually be able to destroy the nuclear program. And that's part of the reason why. Again, look at the actions. Guys, this is all out in the open. They're openly striking regime targets and oil and gas facilities. And, by the way, have been from day one. Yes, exactly. That's why all the strikes in Tehran.

Those are not nuclear facilities. So this has been, and it's so important to emphasize the point Sagar is making because they want to sell you, this is about Iran's nuclear program. And that's the way they'll keep dragging, oh, we actually didn't completely obliterate Porto. Oh, there's this new site. Oh, they moved in rich uranium. Now we got to do more. Now we got to do more. Now we got to do more. And you just keep inching forward. And I mean, Trump at this point is just like completely said, all right, well, we need regime change, I guess. And that's the truth of the matter is even if you keep it at,

we have to make sure that they can't get a nuclear weapon. You can't ensure that. There's literally no way to actually guarantee that. The best path they were on was the diplomatic one back with the JCPOA and the negotiations that were going on at the beginning of this Trump administration where it's like, okay, we're going to give you sanctions relief and you're going to agree not to pursue a weapon and

we're going to have an inspection regime that can give us some sort of comfort that that's not happening. But what the hawks are going to say is, well, you really can't guarantee it until we have some sort of puppet regime in there that we can just control. So that's the way that this logic ultimately works. Let's put AA, please, up on the screen. This is arguably the most important indication that you have come out of Iran.

Well, contextualized for you, the Iranian parliament has reportedly backed closing the Straits of Hormuz, obviously, which could spike the price of oil where, what is it, some 30%, 40% of the world's oil moves through. Very, very important for the Chinese economy. Now, again, just to explain here, what the Iranian parliament did – and there are several different parts of the government. It's not exactly a parliamentary democracy, OK?

There are many different bodies. They all report up to the Ayatollah. Effectively, what they said is they have approved the closing of the Straits of Hormuz if the Ayatollah and the National Security Council of Iran decide to do so. So they're not saying that they're going to do it. It's effectively like a declaration of war from Congress saying, hey, if you want to declare war, you can. And then it's up to the discretionary authority of the executive. So in a way, they actually follow the process more than our own president did whenever he launched a war. Kind of ironic.

honestly. But what it does tell you is that it is the nightmare scenario. It's one that U.S. officials have said would be suicidal. It almost certainly would. It would lead to basically a massive involvement of the United States Navy. It would obviously shock the world's oil prices. It would be a devastating blow to the Chinese economy. It would just be absolute mass chaos. It's

something that they have the ability to do, to mine if they want to and to close along with the Houthis as well to try and put more pressure on US and other shipping assets that are all throughout the region. But the point really stands is that they have a lot of optionality right now. They're looking all across the world. By the way, another reason why that Qatar thing is so significant is it's not about US citizens, Qatar. It's about the fact we have a massive air base in Qatar. Now, reportedly,

A lot of the U.S. assets were taken out of that at the beginning, but this was always a big nightmare is that that air base, very strategic. It was a key staging point for U.S. troops for logistics-wise during the war in Iraq. There's thousands of American service members that are not just there but also in the region. Bahrain, you have the Fifth Fleet, and you have two carrier strike groups that are there as well. Put that together, I mean, with Iraq and with Syria, there are so many different vectors.

through which they could attack the United States, US assets, American citizens, if they wanted to. That is the danger. Now, are they gonna decide to do that? The Americans have basically said that's gonna be suicidal. Again, I ask for strategic empathy. If somebody said that diplomacy with you was a ruse, and if somebody said, "We strike your facilities, but it's not, that's it, no more." And then the president, the chief decider,

comes out and says, actually, it's about regime change, what would you do? And also, we're not dealing with the most rational actors here because the Ayatollah is 86 years old. I've been reading a lot about the Ayatollah, and this is a guy who basically staked his entire security doctrine on nuclear ambitions

as a deterrent, that has collapsed literally around him. The country is more precarious today than at any point since 1979. And in his vision, at any point since the 50s, during the restoration of the Shah. So he doesn't have anything to live for anymore, except for his own legacy. It's not that hard, even at a rational level, take religion and all this other stuff out of it to say,

"We're gonna fight to the death." He's the decider, he's the person who makes these decisions. And there are all kinds of people inside the Iranian regime who want to fight at this point, feel humiliated. There has been a massive rally around the flag in Tehran and all across the country. And in fact, if there is a regime change, he said and already designated his successor, but let's say the mullahs are thrown out of power.

The most likely, from what I can tell and I've read, it would not be Democratic. It would be some secular nationalist IRGC-type figure who would sprint towards a bomb to say we will never let this happen to our country again. This is a bad scenario.

And of course, they have access to chemical, biological weapons. They've got the ballistic missiles program. Israel claims to have destroyed half of it. We'll see. Doesn't look like that from Tel Aviv. I can tell you that right now. But that's, you know, this is why, you know, the triumphalists are like, it's just about the strike. They're like, why are you guys bedwetting so much? God.

- I mean, how have you not learned about the 40th order consequences at this point? And it's not about the one, look, the US strikes on Libya were successful, right? It took seven months for that country to go to shit. Gaddafi was killed in October. We started seven months before that. And actually the country didn't really collapse until 2014. The Iraqi civil war didn't start really in, you know,

hot until 2005, 2006. Afghanistan, the Taliban didn't rise for two to three years. Everybody had their mission accomplished moment. And it happens every time. The West wins the opening because it's about sheer military strength. And then the strategic and the political question, which we never think about from the beginning, collapses. And then what happens? We have to get

more involved. Yeah, I mean, Iranians are fighting an existential battle for their country. Like, that is a difficult... We couldn't even defeat the Houthis. From the air. We can do it on the ground if we want to. You want that? Yeah, exactly. I don't want that. Yeah, so in any case, let's put this... This is unbelievable, this next piece. Put this up on the screen from CNBC. So the U.S. is apparently calling on China to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting global oil flows. So we're like, you know, have created this...

likely consequence or potential consequence. And now we're begging the Chinese to rescue us from the potential implications of our own actions. You know, this is something I want to talk more to Mearsheimer about because Chinese get a much larger percentage of their oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz than ours. However, there are some other possible ways to ship oil other than through the Strait of Hormuz from Iran. So I'm just like,

I'm just very skeptical at this point. You know, we heard all these economic projections about how the sanctions on Russia would just be utterly devastating to their economy and they couldn't possibly survive. And that turned out not to be the case. So at this point, I'm just all of the like...

economic fallout predictions of how this will be completely devastating to the Chinese economy. I just want to learn more and I want to see more before I take people at their word that that would actually be the case. We also had the foreign minister of Iran making comments saying that the U.S. has blown through every red line imaginable, which I think is a pretty reasonable thing, frankly, to say at this point. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say in the wake of these strikes.

The United States showed that they have no respect to United Nations Charter. They have no respect to international law. They have no respect to any international law regarding, you know, managing the board and facing challenges of the board. There is no red line that they have not crossed.

And the last one, and the most dangerous one, was happened only last night when they crossed a very big red line by attacking nuclear facilities. I don't know how much room is left for diplomacy. We are now calculating the damages. And as I said, the damages are not only for our nuclear facilities.

The damages are for the United Nations Charter. It was not only Iran's facilities which was bombed. It was also the United Nations Charter. It was also non-proliferation regime and NPT which was bombed last year by Americans. And it was the rule of law and international law which was bombed. That part about how we, you know,

figuratively bombed the non-proliferation treaty is actually really accurate because many countries, not just Iran, many countries are going to look at our actions and be like, oh, well, they're not messing with North Korea. But I see what happened to Libya. I see what happened to Iran. So what kind of logic does that create around the world? There's just no doubt about that at this point. Put a...

13 up on the screen just in terms of potential retaliation that we're watching. This was an Iranian state TV broadcaster who was showing on the map all the location of U.S. bases throughout the region, of which there are many, and what's harder, some 50,000 U.S. troops stationed throughout the region, all of them at risk, all of them in danger now. They don't have an Iron Dome or a David Sling or an aero system to protect them.

on those bases in the nearby region. And lastly, put A14 up on the screen. We're going to talk more about this, all this sleeper cell talk in the media block, but the U.S. Department of State issued an urgent warning to all American citizens to exercise caution due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran. And they really are pushing this idea here domestically, Sagar, that there's these, you know, Iranian sleeper cells that may, you

leap into action at any moment and I would just be highly skeptical about

highly skeptical of those claims because, I mean, this is the way that they want to bring the war home and create some sort of a justification so people feel like, oh, well, you know, maybe we don't want war, but we got to act. There's these sleeper cells here and I'm terrified that we're going to be next. So that's kind of where we are as we're waiting to see. Ball is in Iran's court of what they're going to do next. Yeah. If you're old enough, you can remember the terror levels

already. We're at security threat level red. So yeah, I feel like I'm 12 years old all over. I feel so old. Watching this all unfold again, I feel so old. Yeah, that's right. That's right. All right. Let's get to Scott Horton. He's standing by.

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Thank you.

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Thank you both very much for having me. Absolutely. I mean, such an expert here is particularly what we wanted to talk about with you, Scott, is uranium enrichment, the claims of the United States, where things stand now, in particular, where things may go, you know, with these U.S. strikes.

on Iran. Let's start here with J.D. Vance asked specifically about the Iranian stockpile of uranium, effectively admitting that the stockpile itself was not hit and what that means for the future. We're going to play it. We're going to get your reaction. Let's take a listen. We feel very confident that the Fordow nuclear site was substantially set back, and that was our goal. The UN's atomic energy watchdog said that Iran had 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium

What do we know what has become of that it was it destroyed in this attack? Do we know that's a work on the coming weeks of

Yeah, John, we're going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel. And that's one of the things that we're going to have conversations with the Iranians about. But what we know, John, is they no longer have the capacity to turn that stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons grade uranium. And that was really the goal here. Uranium is not that difficult to come by, John, but enriching uranium up to the point of a nuclear weapon. That is what the president put a stop to last night.

Scott, can you just react to that? Because now the claim is, is that the stockpile itself was not destroyed possibly for further pretext of U.S. involvement. But maybe even take the audience back a bit further as to what all of this enriched uranium stuff even means and why it really was a pretext and not a real reason for the U.S. to strike them right now.

Yeah, well, that's absolutely right. So to start with the latest, they are more likely to break out toward a nuclear weapon now, which is what those of us on...

on the anti-war side have been saying for 20 years here. What Iran has is a latent nuclear deterrent. They mastered the fuel cycle back in 2005. That is, they proved that they knew how to enrich uranium to whatever percent. Now, they need 3.6% for their electricity program, and they need a little bit of 20% for their medical isotope reactors. But otherwise, the war party is as a kernel of truth when they say,

And you know how they do it. They always make it a rhetorical question. Well, what do they need with all that 60% enriched uranium? Well, there's a real answer to that other than they're on their way to making nuclear weapons. Of course, they could have enriched up to 90-plus percent all along. They enriched up to 60% as a bargaining chip to negotiate away in order to try to get the sanctions lifted and try to get the United States back in the deal. It's the same thing they did in the Obama years.

And, of course, it was in response to Israeli assassinations of their nuclear scientists and attacks on their personnel in Syria and things that caused them to go ahead after Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and go ahead and start enriching up to 20 again and then eventually up to 60 percent. Now, you'll hear every hawk on every show say, oh, my God, 60 percent uranium.

And then what they're betting on is that the audience doesn't know anything about it. And what you're telling them is nuclear, scary, be afraid, and we stop the thing. Trump was asked, but Tulsi Gabbard says they weren't breaking out toward a nuclear weapon. And he said, well, I don't care.

what she said, they were getting close to one or something. He said, Kuki Tucker Carlson needs to understand that Iran can't have a bomb. So what's implied there heavily, of course, is that Iran was making a bomb and that we stopped them from making a bomb. But that's just not true at all. And

I'm not trying to convince anyone to be naive. As I said, it already was a latent nuclear weapons deterrent in a sense. But what it also is is their civilian energy program. And any economist could explain why it might make sense for Iran to burn their domestic supply of uranium and sell their oil on the world market if they can. And so this is the main part of it.

On the other hand, it also is just like Brazil and Germany and Japan, where they've proven they've mastered the fuel cycle, and they could make atomic bombs if pushed to it. So it's sort of like saying, I have a revolver in one pocket and some bullets in the other, lets you and me not get into a fistfight, and then that way this thing won't escalate. That's essentially been their stance our whole 21st century long here. To go back to W. Bush, he put them in the axis of evil. Just think about what a cynical lie this is, that the Ayatollah, Saddam Hussein...

Osama bin Laden and Kim Jong-il are all in on it together working against you, right? This absolute total hoax. Well, Saddam said, my books are wide open. Here's my 12,000-page dossier. I'm not doing anything. And they just buffaloed right in there based on a bunch of lies.

and got it done anyway. The neoconservatives got it done. In North Korea, Bush and Bolton bullied them out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. They went ahead and made nuclear weapons. Nobody's messed with them since. But what the supreme leader did was the supreme leader in Iran, the Ayatollah, said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to open our books wide open

We're gonna stay in the NPT. We have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA and they can verify the non diversion of any nuclear material from our civilian program to any military purpose, which is exactly what they've done.

And the only reason Obama even needed to do the deal in 2015 was because essentially the world led by Israel or the West led by Israel were essentially just pretending the NPT didn't exist, pretending that Iran didn't already have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. And the Israelis were threatening Iran.

an aggressive war then. And Obama felt it was necessary. And I'm not taking Obama's side. For people who don't know me, I hate the Democrats more than anyone hates the Democrats. I'm just telling you this is the true history of the world here. Obama made a deal where they would severely restrict their program. They would expand the inspections regime. And in exchange, we would lift sanctions and

give them some of their own money back. That pallet of cash was money that Jimmy Carter had stolen from them during the revolution in 1979. John Kerry's just given some of that back. In exchange, they poured concrete into their ARAK, that's A-R-A-K, ARAK heavy water reactor. They severely restricted the number of centrifuges spinning at Natanz by, I think, two-thirds. They converted the Fordow facility to research-only facilities.

rather than uranium and rich uranium production. And they expanded the inspections regime where America and our allies on the UN Security Council, we have the majority. It's America, Britain, and France versus Russia and China. And unlike a normal Security Council resolution, Russia and China couldn't veto it. It was majority rules under this deal. If we want to inspect even non-nuclear sites,

We can as long as we have some plausible reason to do so and submit the request in a reasonable amount of time and so forth. There's no way that they can have a secret nuclear weapons program and then smuggle it out the back door before inspectors arrive or whatever, this kind of thing. So the deal of 2015 was engineered so that –

Iran, if they withdrew from the NPT and if they kicked the inspectors out of the country and beat their chest and said, now we're making nukes, it would take them a year to make one. And by the way, as long as you're letting me ramble on here, let me explain real quick too, that you cannot miniaturize a uranium bomb. Uranium bombs are virtually always a gun type nuke like Fat Man that they dropped on Hiroshima, which is essentially a giant shotgun inside that bomb firing a

highly enriched weapons grade enriched uranium slug into a target of the same that causes a super critical reaction they didn't even test that bomb it's 1940s technology simple stuff they didn't test that the Trinity test was of the Nagasaki bomb which was a plutonium implosion bomb that's the kind of bomb that can be miniaturized and married to a missile however

The Iranians have no plutonium route to the bomb because even though they still do have one heavy water reactor at Boucher and it produces plutonium waste, they do not have the facility required to reprocess that waste, get the impurities out to make it possible to use for weapons fuel. And under the JCPOA, which they're still in this part of it with the Russians –

is that every two or three years or so, they shut down the reactor and the Russians will come and get all the plutonium waste and take it away. So their plutonium route to the bomb did not exist at all. And their uranium route to the bomb was delayed for at least one year. And then, as I say, at the end of that year, they would have had enough to make one bomb with

but then no way to deliver it other than slapping on the back of a flatbed truck or something like that. So it still would essentially be the most minimum of nuclear deterrent. And I'll wrap up with this, is that it's clear from all of the reporting here, nothing changed. The only one in opposition to that is Israeli intelligence claims that something changed, but American intelligence has not verified that at all. The only thing that changed was Trump made up a 60-day deadline, and then the Iranians went past it.

And he was on this absolute red line deal killer that they can have no enrichment in the country at all whatsoever. Back to what J.D. Vance was saying there, essentially equating them having the capability to enrich with progress toward a nuclear weapon and claiming that that was what we stopped. But it's just –

It's no more sincere than Bill Clinton in Kosovo or George Bush in Iraq or Afghanistan or Barack Obama in Libya or Syria or any of the rest of Yemen. Any of these things, it's always just hoax after hoax with these people and their wars. Well, let's talk a little bit more about that because they've got a little bit of a propaganda issue given the fact that Tulsi Gabbard was at the end of March.

came out saying very clearly the American intelligence community does not believe that Iran is pursuing a weapon. And so now we're supposed to believe just some months later that this has suddenly completely changed and so much so that we need to get involved in what Trump is now admitting may be a regime change operation. Of course, we've all seen from the beginning that the nukes were pretexted. This was, in fact, a regime change operation. Let me get your reaction to Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying,

being pressed on this question of, okay, well, are they pursuing nuclear bombs since that is your pretext? Let's go ahead and take a listen to how he responds. On a phrase you just worded, weaponization ambitions. Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization?

That's irrelevant. I see that question being asked on the media. That's an irrelevant question. That is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessments. You know that. No, it's not. Yes, it was. No, it's not. The political decision had not been made. I know that better than you know that, and I know that that's not the case. But I'm asking you whether the order was given. And the people who say that...

It doesn't matter if the order was given. They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury things in a mountain 300 feet under the ground? Why do they have 60% enriched uranium? You don't need 60% enriched uranium. The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60% are countries that have nuclear weapons.

Because it can quickly make it 90. They have all the elements. Why do they have a space program? Is Iran going to go to the moon? No. They're trying to build an ICBM so they can one day put a warhead on it. That's a question of intent. And you know in the intelligence assessment that it was that Iran wanted to be a threshold state and use this leverage. How do you know what the intelligence assessment says? I'm talking about the public March assessment. And that's why I was asking you if you know something more from March. But that's also an inaccurate representation of it.

That's inaccurate in representation of it. That's not how intelligence is read. That's not how intelligence is used. Here's what the whole world knows. Forget about intelligence. What the IAEA knows, they are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program. Scott, your reaction to that propaganda effort? I mean, anyone ought to be able to just see right through that. The only countries that have 60% uranium are countries that have nuclear bombs, really.

Is he saying you can make a bomb out of 60% uranium? Is he saying that any nuclear weapons state in the world has their arsenal made out of uranium bombs rather than plutonium implosion bombs? And he's simply bluffing. And Marco Rubio, I'm glad he hired Marco, little Marco for the job, actually, because

You can see right through the guy. He's just as transparent as could be. He's got Miriam Adelson's hand right up his rear end moving his lips for him. He's not really a human man, right? He's like a corporate mascot like Tony the Tiger or Ronald McDonald or something. He's sitting there. His job is to lie to you so that you'll be confused and let him commit horrific sins on behalf of a foreign power. Yeah, I mean, but then one of the things that really, Scott, there is about what you said about the capability of

It is confusing capability with intention. And that intention, again, according to U.S. intelligence, did not exist. I can back you up as well. You know, I reported over the weekend. I spoke with senior U.S. intelligence officials, people with the highest level, who saw it, and they said, no, there has been no change whatsoever in the Ayatollah or the Iranian higher command's decision-making on whether to build a nuclear bomb or not.

And so I really want to just end on that note with you here is specifically about how the logic of nuclearization has never made more sense than today. Because what has happened is that Israel, with impunity, is allowed to just come in and bomb the shit out of your entire regime, basically target your oil and gas facilities. The United States has...

has the ability to come in and to blow up all your nuclear enrichment, it has never made more sense for them to have a nuclear deterrent than right now, instead of trying to pursue some sort of deal when the president himself also says, "Actually, regime change, that's totally cool and fine with me." Why would they want to do anything else? - I mean, look, this very well could be the absolute death of the Nonproliferation Treaty. The nuclear weapons states have never lived up to their promise to disarm that they signed in there, of course.

Although America and Russia did come way down from tens of thousands of nukes each, but still. And then here you have a nuclear weapons state, Israel, that's not a member of the nonproliferation treaty, acting in concert with the United States, the world empire, that's a total violation of it, attacking a non-nuclear weapons state signatory to the NPT over their civilian program. That, again, you hear Marco Rubio bending over backwards trying to figure out how to

get you to conflate it with something scary that, again, was nothing but a latent program at the time. We had the perfect basis for a standoff. I'm not saying I endorse this. I'm a total non-interventionist here. But they were saying, if you attack us, or they were heavily implying, if you attack us, we might just make a nuke. And our side was saying, don't make a nuke or we'll attack you. Okay, well, great. They could have just left it at that for Trump to have

you know, bowed down essentially to pressure. There were, you might remember some wiggle words a couple, a few weeks ago about, well, maybe we could allow some enrichment on some limited basis under some sort of compromise, maybe even do a consortium with the Saudis and enrich together some kind of thing. They were trying to be flexible for a minute there. And then the lobby came down hard and said, no enrichment at,

all which of course the ayatollah was never going to give in to so they were just setting us up for this war but i'll encourage your audience to pay very close attention to people like marco rubio and for that matter the rest of the pundits and whatever out echoing the war party talking points and you will notice this distinct lack of clarity

when it comes down to exactly what was going on here. There's a lot of implication that's essentially relying on people's ignorance. If they say nuclear, it was the focus groups that learned this in 1990. People didn't really want to go liberate Kuwait and reinstall His Highness, the King al-Jabbar, to the throne there until they did. They got people at the mall and they sat them down in focus groups. As soon as they said nuclear, people said, okay, I guess we got to go.

And then they use that same lesson for Rock War II. And of course, they're doing the same thing here because they know that most people didn't study hard sciences in college and stuff. We don't know about uranium this and that. And so they can try to just make it sound scary and say, listen, we can't wait. Remember, this was the line. Pauli Zareis, George Bush and Colin Powell, all three said, we can't wait for the proof.

To come in the form of a mushroom cloud. So you and your mama better just stay scared and let us do what we want.

Yeah, no, that is all so absolutely correct. And I mean, in a way, I appreciate Trump's truth. So she'll say and like, and maybe it is regime change. So we can all drop the pretense here, because I've never seen polling that is so wildly apart, depending on how you frame the question. Because you're absolutely right. If you say to people like Iran's pursuing a nuclear weapon, should we, you know, go in surgical strike their nuclear facilities to prevent them?

Guess what? You get a lot of people who say, yeah, sure, because that also feels costless and limited and like, oh, there's this big, scary threat and we can just take it out easily. Right. If you ask people, I know one of the questions asked, should we get involved in the war between Iran and Israel? And people are like,

Hell no. Why would we do that? And I've yet to even see the question asked, should we get involved in a regime change war with Iran, which is, of course, what we are in at this point? But I have no doubt the polling on that would be absolutely abysmal, which is why, to your point, Scott, it matters so much.

how you frame these questions and how you clarify for the American people what is actually happening here and what the president has actually put us into, which is a regime change war. It is already underway. It is happening right now. Agree. And look, even...

Even regardless, we don't know the secret counsels of these people, but just on the most basic level, this is what Harry Brown said is government doesn't work. They fail upwards. The worse things are, the better it is for them. And so everything by their logic is always escalation. Look, all we're going to do is we're going to take out a few nuclear sites.

What? You're saying now they're going to break out toward a nuclear weapon? Oh, boy, I guess we need to get the Americans in there because only they can get the Fordos site. Now we've got America in there. And then...

No, they're saying, I saw a report today, the Iranians are claiming they have a new secret base that they built under a bigger, deeper tunnel. You can put that up on the screen while you're talking. Yeah, we have that report. Like, oh, there's another one. See, there it is. I guess we're going to have to send in the 82nd Airborne to go in there and destroy it by hand then this time. Are we going to have to use nuclear weapons? Probably not. But they're talking about that might be what it would take.

Or you know what? I guess we're just going to have to go ahead and kill the Supreme Leader. I saw Benjamin Netanyahu said that would solve everything if we just killed the Ayatollah Khamenei. And can't you picture George W. Bush – I mean Donald Trump, same difference, buying into that one.

And going along with that. And then what? Now you got to kill every last Shiite cleric in the country to prevent one from claiming to be the supreme leader? Are you going to prop up the Azeris or the Baluki Bin Ladenites in order to keep the Shiites out? Or who's going to take charge? They're talking about parachuting in the Shah's son? Oh, my God. How in the world could anyone? His Royal Highness, according to Fox News. Yeah.

Is that what they're even calling him? Yes, they called him his ruler highness. You know what's also funny? Oh, that's so great. I love that. It's not even the correct title. It's his imperial highness, just for those of us who care. The Shah of Shah. I'm just saying, if we want to be correct, let's be correct. We should also be calling him my lord, my Darth Vader. My liege, yes. Can't get over it. Scott, I said to you, I'm sorry that your expertise still continues to be so incredibly relevant, but we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and help explain these things. No one does it better than you do.

Thank you so much, both of you. Great to be with you. We've all tried protein drinks on the go, but why don't they taste more like the ones we make at home or from the juice bar? They're too chalky and too sweet from sugar or artificial sweeteners. We love the health benefits, but hate the taste. Now you can finally get both with Don't Quit Protein Drinks. Loaded with 33 grams of protein, only one gram of sugar, and a cleaner approach to ingredients that use no artificial flavors or sweeteners, but still delivers that smooth texture and delicious taste we all crave.

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