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We are about to enter the eight most dangerous weeks in our lives, because the US midterms will determine the fate of President Trump's administration, and the most dangerous time is the transition of power.

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And we saw this with January 6th.

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And so what happens in this transition period could also easily dovetail in the Iran war, because President Trump has promised over and over again that he will escalate after

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the elections.

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Well, now we're after the elections.

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So let me show you what's really going to happen.

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But first, I've studied political violence around the world for 30 years, and I've advised every White House since 9-11.

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What do you think is going to happen then over these eight weeks?

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So let's start with the beginning.

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Will President Trump accept the election results, but also a plan that's on his desk?

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is a plan to hit targets in Iran over a three-day period.

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And as the Iran war is escalating, now we have the issue of this is a likely possible time when Putin is gonna start to realize he can't get Ukrainian territory from Trump.

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So he moves to his next plan, and I'll show you what that might look like.

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What happens next?

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There's going to be enormous pressure on Europe to retaliate.

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And when Europe does that, that's what World War III looks like.

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President Trump will be able to start declaring more and more emergency power.

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And this will lead into a devastating 2027.

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What can we do?

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And what about the general public?

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Do you think we should be stockpiling?

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Number one, incredibly important, which is

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Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins.

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But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make the show better.

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Thank you so, so, so much.

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Robert Pape, every time I speak to you, I feel like I start with the same question.

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But it is the question that is front of mind for me, which is, what the hell is going on in the world at the moment?

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What's going on is we are getting deeper and deeper into an escalation trap, and we are moving up rungs in escalation where risk is growing.

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And we are about to enter the eight most dangerous weeks since this war began, and they may become the eight most dangerous weeks in our lives.

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We are going to see the coming together of three fundamentally dangerous issues.

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We're about to see the U.S. midterms where the voting has now stopped, but we are now in the process of counting the vote, certifying the vote, and in two months, and it will take two months, seeding the victors.

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That's the transfer of power where the real danger zone of voting

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political violence, what I call violent populism, is starting now.

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It began the moment the voting stopped and the counting began because that's the transfer of power.

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Okay, so most of my audiences around the world probably won't know, including myself, what a midterm is.

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In the presidential system in the United States, we

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We have four-year terms for our U.S. presidents.

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Then for our Congress, we hold an election every two years.

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And we have two houses in our Congress.

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Sometimes it dovetails with the election of the president, in which case we just call it the general election.

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But when the president is not up for re-election, we call it a midterm, meaning midterm of the president's term.

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So let me explain this to you, and you tell me if I've got this.

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There is this House of Representatives, and then there's the Senate.

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That's right.

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And both of them work to vote laws into power.

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That's right.

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And as we stand here right now, the Republicans, Trump's party...

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has a majority in both, so it's quite easy for them to pass new laws.

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What you're saying is, in these midterms that are coming up, there's a prospect that Trump might lose his power in the Senate and in the House, which would mean he wouldn't be able to get his laws passed very easily.

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It's not just about passing laws, Stephen.

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It's about a system of check and balance.

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The way the Constitution was set up is that the Congress and the President and then also the Supreme Court, which is not an elected body, they check each other.

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So what's supposed to moderate the policies in the United States—

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where we don't go to the extremes, is when different parties control the Congress

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And the president, when you have the same party controlling both houses of Congress and the president, by definition, there's very little check and balance on the president.

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The president can pretty much do what the president wants, especially in international affairs, but also very heavily in domestic.

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That's why the president's power is.

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is going to be severely checked if Republicans no longer control the House and the Senate.

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So why is this the eight most dangerous weeks?

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It's the eight most dangerous weeks because political violence,

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especially in the era of violent populism, when tens of millions of Americans support political violence on both sides of the aisle, the most dangerous time is the transition of power.

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And we saw this...

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six years ago with January 6th.

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It's important to remember that in November 2020, President Biden was elected.

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However, that did not prevent President Trump from taking steps to work.

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prevent that transfer of power.

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We saw it come to a head on January 6th, and that occurred over a two-month process.

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It was when the voting stopped and the counting began, and then the certification of the votes began, and then the transfer of power.

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That was the most dangerous moment that we have seen in American domestic politics since the Civil War.

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We are heading to a very similar situation again, and it's worse now.

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How do you know?

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For 30 years, I've studied political violence around the world.

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But for the last five years, Stephen, I have devoted myself to understanding what's happened in the United States.

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We are seeing a transition of power in the context of literally...

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This fact.

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What does that fact say?

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That fact is that today, as of a month ago, over 40 million Americans support the use of the U.S. military to suppress Democratic protesters against the Trump agenda.

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Think of this as 40 million Americans who support political violence for Trump.

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Right.

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And 60 million Americans, over 60 million, support the use of force to prevent Trump from being president.

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I've been doing these national representative surveys for five years.

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These numbers are double what they were in September 2024, two years ago.

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And two years ago, you'll recall, we had multiple assassination attempts against President Trump.

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You remember a year ago, we had the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

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So these numbers are worse than that.

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And we are coming into the most volatile election in our lifetimes, really, because this really will determine the fate of President Trump's administration for the final two years.

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If it turns out that at the end of these two months that the Democrats control one, or especially if they control both the House and the Senate.

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This is going to mean the virtual political destruction of the Trump presidency.

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The Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, they will not only have the power of subpoenas to be able to compel on penalty of going to jail and prison testimony from members of the Trump administration.

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They will have the power of impeachment.

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Right.

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And it's not just impeaching President Trump.

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It's impeaching the members of his cabinet.

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Think Secretary Hegseth.

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think the attorney general, think the Department of Homeland Security secretary.

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And if, in fact, they also control the Senate, now, with just a few more Republican votes, and there are many disgruntled Republicans already and many Republicans that have moved away from President Trump in recent months, they have the possibility of literally removing them from office.

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That

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There's no political bottom there, Stephen.

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This is not like, oh, it's just once you get rid of one cabinet secretary, everybody calms down.

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What we are witnessing is a true watershed period.

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for the political power of President Trump.

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And that means also the power of the MAGA agenda, whether or not there will be mass deportations in the country.

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How would that be impacted by the midterms?

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If starting in January,

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There are months and months of turmoil in the Trump administration where literally the heads of the cabinet offices, including the Department of Homeland Security, are on the block to be removed.

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The idea that you're going to have consistent operations within the departments, very, very, very difficult, Stephen.

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What do you think is going to happen then?

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Yeah.

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over these eight weeks.

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It starts with the midterms.

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It starts with the issue of violent populism.

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It starts with the issue of the consequences of President Trump's presidency.

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But it doesn't stop there.

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Because you see, this is not happening in isolation.

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It's happening during the Iran war.

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And so what happens in this midterm transition period could also easily dovetail with more escalation in the Iran war.

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And in fact, President Trump has promised over and over and over again that,

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that he will escalate after the elections.

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Well, now we're after the elections.

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And at the same time, as if that was not dangerous enough, we have a third issue, which is that President Putin in Russia is threatening to escalate strongly against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

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Okay.

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to target electric power in Kyiv, in Kharkiv, and in Odessa in a dramatic way.

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I thought they were doing a deal.

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President Putin has done nothing to say that this is off the table.

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And there's every sign, and in fact, growing signs by European governments, that they are extremely worried about what's coming in the Ukraine war, that there will be, as the phrasing is now called, a dark winter in Ukraine.

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So these are eight weeks.

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Yes.

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Talk me through them week by week.

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Let's start with the beginning, which is the election results.

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And now the question is, will President Trump accept the election results?

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Or if they ultimately go against the Democrats, will the Democrats vote?

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who are built up this giant set of hopes, expectations of victory, would they accept not taking control of Congress?

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This is really step one.

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And this is coming right on the heels of another step.

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President Trump has promised that the United States and Israel will,

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will conduct strikes against Iran, heavy strikes, right after the midterms.

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When did he say that?

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I was looking for his quotes on this, and he seems to be pretty cryptic in saying that Trump described it as decision time, stating he faces a choice between reaching a deal or taking action to finish them off.

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Yes.

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and asked directly by reporters whether strikes would resume, he remarked that anything is possible and declined to take options off the table.

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As he is putting on the table the distinct possibility of him deciding to do these strikes, he's taking serious steps with his administration to literally prepare for the strikes.

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Step number one that's a costly step is to remove embassy personnel, the families of the embassy from the region.

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This has happened in Saudi Arabia.

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This has happened in multiple of the frontline Gulf states.

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The second big thing that's happened is he has asked the military for a detailed set of attack plans.

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these detailed plans.

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We have the leaks of them.

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He has not just had the plans drawn up, but he's given the orders for CENTCOM that within maximum 96 hours of his go code, they are to execute the plan.

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So you, I've got your book here, Bombing to Win, Air Power and Coercion in War.

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And you actually spent a long time modeling what would happen if the US decided to bomb Iran before they did.

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That's right.

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20 years.

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And what you said to me in these previous conversations we've had has played out in a really, you know, very interesting but very accurate way.

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Actually, when we first met and you first told me about this idea of an escalation trap and that the U.S. might be stuck, I didn't really understand that idea.

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Like, the U.S. military is so big.

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Of course, they would just go in there and they'd win.

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But you were right.

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And so I ask you now, we're now, you know, I don't know, five, six months into the war.

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What is going, how does this end?

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An escalation trap, Stephen, is when a strong country like the United States and Israel attacks a weaker country and they have tactical success.

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The bombs hit targets, the bombs kill leaders, but the weaker country gains power.

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And in this case, that happened almost immediately as Iran gained heavy control of the Strait of Hormuz and with it, heavy control of 20% of the world's oil.

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What happens next?

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What happens next is humiliation for the side that started that attack.

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This might be a good time, Stephen, to let me explain what a lot of people think is strategy.

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And a lot of people think that what strategy is, Stephen, is a chess game.

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But let's play that out and show you what the escalation trap looks like in a chess game.

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So this is white, and white plays an opening move.

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Is that America in this analogy?

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This is America.

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This is President Trump.

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White plays an opening move, and red then makes a move.

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And what does white do?

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Takes a pawn.

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Okay.

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Now it looks like white is ahead.

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Now red makes another move.

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And let's just say red brings out a knight, of course, threatening the pawn.

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And now white makes another move, putting the bishop here, thinking threatening the queen.

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But as we know in chess, the queen, the red queen can now just simply take the bishop.

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The opening has opened.

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There was an initial gain.

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But what happened very quickly is red is now more powerful than it was before.

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At this point in a chess game, Stephen, what happens is white offers red a draw.

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Trump and Israel started this.

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Iran got ahead.

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And so everybody's been saying for months and months and months, President Trump, just take a deal.

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Well, that would make perfect sense if what we were doing is we were playing a chess game.

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International politics, especially when a strong power is ahead, is not a chess game.

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Let me explain what I mean by that.

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A better analogy for international politics is roulettes.

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You see, what happens in a game of roulette, and anybody who's been to the casino will know this, you can go and you see that, oh, my goodness gracious, the odds of me winning here if I bet on a number, they're not very good.

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But the odds if I just decide I'm going to bet on, say, red, I'm just going to put a bet down.

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And what happens is it's not quite 50-50.

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The house still has an advantage.

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But nonetheless, a lot of roulette players think, well, I'm going to start out there.

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But what happens, Stephen, when they lose?

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Now, you're the house.

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You've just won there.

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Now what happens is a lot of gamblers will suddenly dig in deeper.

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I'm going to double down, or in this case, I'm even more than doubling down, and I'm going to bet even more on red because since I lost on red before, surely it'll come up red again.

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But now the wheel spins, and guess what happens?

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It comes up black again.

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Now the house has taken even more chips, and now the house has taken even more chips.

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Now I'm way behind.

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And you know what I also did here?

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And a lot of gamblers do that.

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They made a deal with a bookie.

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And they said, you know what?

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Let me borrow some of the chips here.

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Because I'm going to get it back.

216
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And what are they going to do?

217
00:19:23.747 --> 00:19:24.588
They're going to bet that.

218
00:19:25.308 --> 00:19:40.397
an even bigger pile of chips, they're going to bet all those chips on red 36 because see now the odds are riskier, but if they win and again, they're betting on red, they're hoping they're finally, their numbers finally come and do.

219
00:19:40.417 --> 00:19:40.477
So,

220
00:19:40.977 --> 00:19:44.441
They're gonna make back the money they lost and even more money.

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00:19:44.782 --> 00:19:47.906
At each rung, President Trump has made a bet.

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He's bet that if he attacks the Supreme Leader, kills the Supreme Leader, this will weaken Iran.

223
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It didn't work.

224
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He lost the chips.

225
00:19:57.238 --> 00:19:59.120
So he bet on a six-week air campaign.

226
00:19:59.721 --> 00:20:05.205
And then he thought, okay, well, I'm going to increase, I'm going to go not just for two or three days of bombing, I'm going to go for six weeks of bombing.

227
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He lost on red again.

228
00:20:07.106 --> 00:20:08.226
How did he lose that?

229
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Because Iran did not concede and kept control of the Strait of Hormuz.

230
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That is what is wrecking and putting the gas prices up high.

231
00:20:18.773 --> 00:20:25.838
So as time has gone on, it's literally the chips that he is risking here are American gas prices.

232
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And American lives.

233
00:20:27.259 --> 00:20:27.419
Yeah.

234
00:20:27.979 --> 00:20:35.783
In American lives and American interest rates, all of that is the equivalent of the chips that we are losing.

235
00:20:36.243 --> 00:20:38.964
But now he's bet again on the blockade.

236
00:20:39.525 --> 00:20:40.025
And guess what?

237
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It's been six solid months, Stephen.

238
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And

239
00:20:44.642 --> 00:20:48.025
He's lost again because what's happened after six months?

240
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Iran has not caved, it's not collapsed.

241
00:20:51.148 --> 00:20:53.290
Those gas prices are going up.

242
00:20:53.750 --> 00:20:56.613
This is why he's in so much pressure in the midterm.

243
00:20:56.933 --> 00:20:58.014
But it gets worse than that.

244
00:20:58.655 --> 00:21:01.017
So now, Stephen, he's lost again.

245
00:21:01.157 --> 00:21:02.639
Take these, now you're the house.

246
00:21:02.679 --> 00:21:04.100
You've got all those chips.

247
00:21:04.921 --> 00:21:06.562
Now he's way behind.

248
00:21:07.858 --> 00:21:15.986
And he's got a deadline because in the gambler's deadline, all these chips that I've just been playing with, I've borrowed them.

249
00:21:16.809 --> 00:21:18.310
I borrowed them from the bookies.

250
00:21:18.470 --> 00:21:21.631
Are you saying that he's borrowed the chips from somewhere?

251
00:21:21.931 --> 00:21:24.992
He's borrowing the chips.

252
00:21:25.212 --> 00:21:34.895
And in this case, the chips are the political support of his party, MAGA and the control of the party in order to win back everything.

253
00:21:35.315 --> 00:21:41.157
Because come January 3rd, there's going to be a new Congress.

254
00:21:42.037 --> 00:21:46.481
That's the equivalent of the bookies wanting all those chips back in your hand.

255
00:21:46.561 --> 00:21:56.709
So you're saying with this last bet that he's making, because he started the war in Iran, that's right, sentiment towards the Republicans and Trump has gone down, as we've seen.

256
00:21:56.729 --> 00:21:59.231
Hugely down, lost all those chips in your hand.

257
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And now senators and...

258
00:22:01.373 --> 00:22:23.282
congresspeople are going to potentially lose their jobs on the republican side to them that's right they're going to lose their jobs and as they lose their jobs um they're not going to want to support him in the future they're pulling they will pull away from him more and more and more why doesn't he just he's got two years then is it not conceivable that he just decides to

259
00:22:24.642 --> 00:22:25.563
relax for two years.

260
00:22:25.984 --> 00:22:30.970
Okay, I can't get laws passed and I can't get things done, but I could just chill at the White House.

261
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Yes.

262
00:22:31.771 --> 00:22:35.075
So there's two big problems with that idea, Stephen.

263
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Problem number one is presidents don't just abandon their party, their agenda, and their legacy.

264
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We see this not just with President Trump and MAGA, but we saw this with Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War.

265
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Lyndon Johnson went through a very similar game of roulette where he kept doubling down as each rung of the escalation ladder cost him more and more support.

266
00:23:00.403 --> 00:23:04.488
As the American people were turning against the war, he kept going up the ladder.

267
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Chasing his losses.

268
00:23:05.930 --> 00:23:19.269
He's chasing his losses, hoping, even though each risk is riskier, each bet is riskier, he sees it as the only way to dig out of this doom loop that he is in.

269
00:23:19.430 --> 00:23:20.912
And there are deadlines.

270
00:23:21.172 --> 00:23:25.978
The equivalent of the bookie wanting their money back in two weeks is the election.

271
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And it's not just the day of the election.

272
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It's the election's mean transfer of power where the whole legacy comes unglued.

273
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And the legacy of the losing president is the worst of all.

274
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And so this would mean President Trump, when you say, shouldn't he just go to St. Andrews to play golf?

275
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He becomes Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson combined.

276
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The worst president that we've ever had in anything, any of our lifetimes.

277
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This is a huge problem for any president to just simply absorb.

278
00:24:01.610 --> 00:24:02.531
So that was the first point.

279
00:24:02.671 --> 00:24:06.113
The second point is the crypto.

280
00:24:06.133 --> 00:24:13.397
So President Trump has made enormous money for himself and his family on various investments.

281
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And a lot of it is in crypto.

282
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And crypto is ultimate confidence investment.

283
00:24:21.722 --> 00:24:31.948
So that what you have with crypto, the final gold piece here is this can go up poof when President Trump's power goes up.

284
00:24:32.548 --> 00:24:42.574
So the problem with crypto and his money in crypto is that this is heavily dependent on President Trump's power.

285
00:24:43.095 --> 00:24:46.817
And when President Trump's power goes poof, um.

286
00:24:46.997 --> 00:24:50.580
a lot of crypto, not all of it, but a lot of it will go poof.

287
00:24:50.660 --> 00:25:01.630
And that will be true not just for him personally, he's 80 years old, but for his family, for his friends, those people that have made enormous fortunes on this.

288
00:25:01.650 --> 00:25:07.135
So when President Trump looks at this, this isn't just ego humiliation.

289
00:25:07.576 --> 00:25:12.881
This is massive loss in history and,

290
00:25:13.541 --> 00:25:18.042
And this is also massive personal financial loss for his family.

291
00:25:18.743 --> 00:25:22.784
His family are quite involved in the gambling laws and prediction markets in the United States as well.

292
00:25:22.804 --> 00:25:26.965
I think his son is actually on the board of one of the big prediction market companies.

293
00:25:27.005 --> 00:25:31.447
And they've sort of like held back the laws and regulations so that prediction markets can exist.

294
00:25:32.187 --> 00:25:36.388
So I understand it from that perspective as well that they do have financial interests that could be at risk.

295
00:25:36.708 --> 00:25:38.709
And what happens with the gambler here is,

296
00:25:39.654 --> 00:25:41.334
They keep going until what?

297
00:25:41.974 --> 00:25:43.535
They lose it all.

298
00:25:43.555 --> 00:25:44.355
So what happens next?

299
00:25:44.375 --> 00:25:45.675
So they lose it all.

300
00:25:45.835 --> 00:25:46.235
In Iran.

301
00:25:46.635 --> 00:25:48.696
So let's go back to the board.

302
00:25:49.256 --> 00:26:01.398
Now that we understand the escalation trap that us and Trump is in, what we can see is there's reality to why he wants to escalate and double down again.

303
00:26:02.018 --> 00:26:06.359
Because he is looking for a way to turn around

304
00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:12.385
This pessimistic view of President Trump as he can't win the war.

305
00:26:13.025 --> 00:26:25.539
This is now critical because if he doesn't find a way to hold on to the final set of chips of MAGA support, which depends on him being the winner, then...

306
00:26:25.983 --> 00:26:28.906
he's going to lose those chips going forward.

307
00:26:29.486 --> 00:26:38.615
So this is the big pressure, the pressure I call the pressure of humiliation for the loser to keep doubling down.

308
00:26:39.115 --> 00:26:43.959
And this is why this step is a serious risk as we go forward.

309
00:26:45.841 --> 00:26:50.185
He hasn't given the go code yet to actually strike Iran.

310
00:26:50.205 --> 00:27:01.995
And we're going to play out the rest of this because once we see where this could all head, it's important to understand that I've advised every White House since 9-11.

311
00:27:02.575 --> 00:27:14.265
And I've seen that in the White Houses, even though there are heavy commitments to policies, until the final go order is given, it is possible to reverse course.

312
00:27:14.791 --> 00:27:17.794
I'm pretty sure he's learned that now, that just dropping more bombs doesn't work.

313
00:27:18.174 --> 00:27:30.024
This is the mistake that many folks are making in the media because they have gone from being white belts to green belts with their strategy, but they haven't gone to brown belt and black belt.

314
00:27:30.504 --> 00:27:34.207
So the leaks that are coming out about the three-day plan

315
00:27:35.208 --> 00:27:36.349
are consistent.

316
00:27:36.810 --> 00:27:48.059
The three-day plan is, President Trump is describing here, the plan that's on his desk is a plan to hit targets in Iran over a three-day period.

317
00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:55.045
And as soon as the media, I believe, saw the word three in the three-day, now this can't be anything.

318
00:27:55.065 --> 00:27:57.567
This must be a truly minor issue.

319
00:27:58.208 --> 00:27:58.388
But

320
00:27:59.598 --> 00:28:07.418
what we're talking about in the target sets that are coming out are a whole new level of leadership targeting.

321
00:28:08.484 --> 00:28:14.328
a level of economic targeting hitting refineries, economic power, and bridges.

322
00:28:15.269 --> 00:28:30.319
And this looks to me an awful lot like what was instant thunder, the three-day, it was supposed to only be a three-day plan that opened the war against Iraq in 1991 that was targeting 84 people

323
00:28:34.722 --> 00:28:42.385
leadership and infrastructure targets where it was meant to paralyze Saddam Hussein's regime.

324
00:28:43.305 --> 00:28:54.790
This is exactly the air campaign that has been at the heart of many air strategists since the 1991 war.

325
00:28:55.330 --> 00:28:58.211
This is when I am debating air strategy.

326
00:28:58.411 --> 00:29:00.212
I am literally debating

327
00:29:00.832 --> 00:29:06.396
the people who came up with that plan originally and are still pushing that plan.

328
00:29:07.096 --> 00:29:18.144
It says, The three-day plan is a Pentagon military contingency for a rapid, high-intensity aerial campaign against Iran if post-election negotiations break down, presumably the midterm elections.

329
00:29:18.664 --> 00:29:29.609
It is designed to hit missile sites, drone launch hubs, IRGC command centres and energy infrastructure over 72 hours to force capitulation without triggering a prolonged ground war.

330
00:29:30.049 --> 00:29:43.115
Trump paused major strikes until after the November 3rd midterms, but he has explicitly characterised the post-election window as a final choice to either strike a diplomatic deal with him or initiate these strikes to finish...

331
00:29:43.935 --> 00:29:44.536
it off.

332
00:29:44.636 --> 00:29:45.216
That's right.

333
00:29:45.276 --> 00:29:50.060
This is much more than the word three days would communicate.

334
00:29:50.700 --> 00:29:58.607
What you just read there is exactly the full set of instant thunder, uh, target sets.

335
00:29:59.167 --> 00:30:03.210
If, if he does this three day plan thing, does it fail?

336
00:30:03.571 --> 00:30:04.732
And if it fails, it fails.

337
00:30:04.992 --> 00:30:10.896
And then what happens is we go to stage three, which is a three day bombing campaign

338
00:30:11.923 --> 00:30:14.084
becomes a much longer bombing campaign.

339
00:30:14.524 --> 00:30:18.066
So the three-day bombing campaign drags on, Steve.

340
00:30:18.166 --> 00:30:21.988
This is exactly what happened with Instant Thunder.

341
00:30:22.469 --> 00:30:29.352
It was planned as three days with an extra three days of backup strikes, but it went on for 43 days.

342
00:30:29.873 --> 00:30:33.615
Never did succeed in paralyzing the military of Iraq.

343
00:30:34.035 --> 00:30:43.117
And the hope here, the success, as far as Trump would see it, would be that they come to the table to make a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and to vouch never to have nuclear weapons.

344
00:30:43.497 --> 00:30:44.637
No, not only that.

345
00:30:44.677 --> 00:30:45.858
That's part of the deal.

346
00:30:46.338 --> 00:30:49.639
Once you do this, there's nobody to come to the table.

347
00:30:50.139 --> 00:30:55.300
You are destroying so much of the leadership stratum

348
00:30:56.360 --> 00:31:19.019
that the idea of coming to the table we president trump has occasionally said he's not sure who to negotiate with now once you're in day six or seven of this you're really not going to know who to negotiate with because this is the the whole point of this plan steven is to paralyze the government so it cannot function

349
00:31:19.759 --> 00:31:35.290
Their goal of the plan is not to tilt the balance of hawks and doves inside of the government the way a lot of people, again, who just kind of generally know about bombing but don't know the full details of the way the strategies work.

350
00:31:35.870 --> 00:31:44.436
This is a plan, Stephen, that is meant to completely paralyze the body of the military and...

351
00:31:44.696 --> 00:31:52.204
And then the problem here is because you've paralyzed it, who are you going to negotiate with?

352
00:31:53.145 --> 00:31:55.647
Now, that's not likely the next set of steps.

353
00:31:55.787 --> 00:32:03.255
You see, once you do this, now, if you haven't fully paralyzed the military,

354
00:32:04.438 --> 00:32:15.806
And that's what I'm telling you is very likely what's going to happen is the Iranian military that is left, and there's going to be quite a bit of it left with a lot of power to strike back.

355
00:32:16.466 --> 00:32:25.432
They're going to start lashing back and they can lash back in a whole variety of ways, including attacks against ISIS.

356
00:32:25.572 --> 00:32:27.092
airports in the region.

357
00:32:27.632 --> 00:32:36.054
This is the real, this is the time when Saddam Hussein, after we did this, this is when he bombed sites in Riyadh.

358
00:32:36.214 --> 00:32:39.955
So this is when his personnel were killed in Riyadh.

359
00:32:40.075 --> 00:32:44.236
And in fact, we could never stop the Scud missiles of Iraq.

360
00:32:44.636 --> 00:32:50.357
And so what happened is, so we've seen the breaking of this threshold, this is why this is credible.

361
00:32:51.157 --> 00:32:57.484
It's because we've seen the beginning of this with Iran's ally, the Houthis, which is the group in Yemen.

362
00:32:58.045 --> 00:33:06.515
So what happened is as the escalation between Saudi Arabia and the group in Yemen called the Houthis,

363
00:33:07.075 --> 00:33:08.135
was escalating.

364
00:33:08.595 --> 00:33:23.900
The Houthis directly with missiles struck Terminals 3 and Terminals 4 on separate days in the Riyadh International Airport, killing over a dozen people and wounding over 300 people.

365
00:33:25.880 --> 00:33:35.024
And this is the first time in this war that we saw the direct targeting of civilians, intentional targeting of civilians.

366
00:33:35.824 --> 00:33:39.126
And it wasn't just one day, it was multiple days.

367
00:33:39.826 --> 00:33:41.187
And what I'm pointing out is...

368
00:33:41.867 --> 00:33:51.138
This is the pattern that you would expect as this progresses so that what you're doing is you're getting deeper in.

369
00:33:51.819 --> 00:33:56.004
And who are you going to communicate with to tell them to stop?

370
00:33:56.565 --> 00:33:57.386
What's number six?

371
00:33:57.586 --> 00:33:58.307
Number six.

372
00:33:58.568 --> 00:33:59.949
Now we need to understand.

373
00:34:01.093 --> 00:34:04.054
What's happened, Stephen, is look how deep we've gone in.

374
00:34:04.074 --> 00:34:07.575
We started with what was supposed to be just another limited strike.

375
00:34:08.155 --> 00:34:12.116
This time, however, it's building its own momentum.

376
00:34:12.856 --> 00:34:23.939
And as it builds its own momentum, now we have that decentralized structure in Iran striking back in ways it decides on its own.

377
00:34:25.140 --> 00:34:26.300
But there's another problem.

378
00:34:26.961 --> 00:34:36.947
That other problem is these attacks, Stephen, are likely going to kill thousands and thousands of civilians in Iran.

379
00:34:37.047 --> 00:34:37.587
Which attacks?

380
00:34:37.908 --> 00:34:44.852
The three-day and the six-day and the continued attacks here on these Instant Thunder-style airplane

381
00:34:45.492 --> 00:34:50.754
is exactly the airplane we executed against Saddam Hussein in 91.

382
00:34:50.774 --> 00:34:52.414
But it was against his regime.

383
00:34:52.574 --> 00:34:54.835
It was against the economic infrastructure.

384
00:34:54.855 --> 00:34:56.155
We hit his oil refineries.

385
00:34:56.196 --> 00:34:57.356
We hit his electric power.

386
00:34:57.856 --> 00:35:01.577
And we killed somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 civilians

387
00:35:04.098 --> 00:35:05.319
in doing this plan.

388
00:35:05.359 --> 00:35:09.443
This is not a plan where no civilians die.

389
00:35:09.904 --> 00:35:10.684
This is a plan.

390
00:35:10.724 --> 00:35:12.286
Lots of people are going to die through this period.

391
00:35:12.306 --> 00:35:13.787
Lots of people are going to die here.

392
00:35:13.867 --> 00:35:16.210
And that leads to inspired attacks.

393
00:35:17.310 --> 00:35:25.439
What an inspired attack is, is a terrorist attack that is not command directed by a government.

394
00:35:25.499 --> 00:35:28.362
It is not coming from the supreme leader.

395
00:35:28.422 --> 00:35:31.425
The supreme leader may even be dead as a result of all this.

396
00:35:32.046 --> 00:35:35.629
An inspired attack is what we saw in the Tel Aviv plane incident.

397
00:35:36.270 --> 00:35:45.153
So we just literally saw, the last time I was on your show, I was warning you that there will be, we will likely see civilian attacks.

398
00:35:45.253 --> 00:35:47.194
It could well be inspired attacks.

399
00:35:47.554 --> 00:35:56.898
It's because in the aftermath of the 10 million plus who came out to support the Supreme Leader, they called for revenge.

400
00:35:57.378 --> 00:36:05.070
That is exactly the pool of sentiments that is likely to inspire individuals on their own.

401
00:36:05.170 --> 00:36:13.082
I don't mean command directed by Iran on their own to carry out terrorist attacks or suicide terrorist attacks.

402
00:36:13.442 --> 00:36:20.986
Well, what happened in the Tel Aviv incident, this was a co-pilot who the plane took off from the airport in Dubai.

403
00:36:21.707 --> 00:36:26.089
And it had about 170 civilians on the airplane.

404
00:36:26.129 --> 00:36:29.171
About 100 of those civilians were Israelis.

405
00:36:29.951 --> 00:36:37.155
And after two and a half hours, that co-pilot took a hatchet that was in the cockpit.

406
00:36:37.215 --> 00:36:39.997
Most people didn't even know there was a hatchet in the cockpit.

407
00:36:40.597 --> 00:36:44.020
And he tried to take control of the plane.

408
00:36:44.360 --> 00:36:46.282
He tried to kill the pilot.

409
00:36:46.842 --> 00:36:50.645
And he was only 30 minutes from Tel Aviv.

410
00:36:51.366 --> 00:36:55.810
So I've studied 8,000 suicide attacks in detail.

411
00:36:55.910 --> 00:36:57.051
I mean, I've written a book about it.

412
00:36:57.291 --> 00:36:57.551
Two.

413
00:36:58.051 --> 00:36:59.212
You've got two there.

414
00:36:59.372 --> 00:36:59.553
Yeah.

415
00:36:59.693 --> 00:37:00.173
Yeah.

416
00:37:00.213 --> 00:37:01.814
Cutting the fuse as well.

417
00:37:01.834 --> 00:37:03.356
So studying all those attacks.

418
00:37:03.516 --> 00:37:04.397
Once I saw...

419
00:37:05.177 --> 00:37:05.957
Exactly.

420
00:37:06.137 --> 00:37:14.839
The location of where the co-pilot tried to take control of the plane, that told me very heavily this was likely a suicide attack.

421
00:37:15.099 --> 00:37:21.821
Because if he just wanted to kill himself, the co-pilot, he likely would have done that almost immediately after the plane had taken off.

422
00:37:21.861 --> 00:37:33.583
He wouldn't wait to just get so close to Tel Aviv that then he could have the possibility of driving it into a target in Tel Aviv, killing people on the plane and people on the ground in Tel Aviv.

423
00:37:33.623 --> 00:37:40.331
And looking at some of the reports here from CBS News, they say various sort of Israeli officials have linked it to Iran.

424
00:37:40.351 --> 00:37:49.603
But Trump also said, based on what I'm hearing, the co-pilot had direct links to Iran, warning that any state actor behind the incident would face devastation.

425
00:37:50.298 --> 00:37:55.360
Well, so we don't know for sure it wasn't command-directed, Stephen.

426
00:37:55.840 --> 00:37:59.141
I'm telling you that it wouldn't need to be command-directed.

427
00:37:59.762 --> 00:38:03.523
Some of the best information we have has come from the pilot himself.

428
00:38:03.563 --> 00:38:06.344
So now that he's healing, he's giving interviews here.

429
00:38:06.964 --> 00:38:11.246
And he is describing a situation where everything is fine in the flight.

430
00:38:11.286 --> 00:38:13.227
There's no sign whatsoever that...

431
00:38:13.927 --> 00:38:19.451
He's sitting with a mentally disturbed individual looking to somehow off himself or so forth.

432
00:38:19.751 --> 00:38:22.953
And then suddenly he feels a club on his head.

433
00:38:23.373 --> 00:38:27.116
Then he realizes and starts to put two and two together.

434
00:38:27.756 --> 00:38:31.739
And that's when he makes every effort to keep the door open.

435
00:38:32.260 --> 00:38:37.063
And essentially what you saw here was we're not, we can't say it's a,

436
00:38:37.623 --> 00:38:40.284
100% certain it was a suicide terrorist attack.

437
00:38:40.564 --> 00:39:01.429
But my estimate is that it's gone from being, say, 75% certain to 90% certain that this is an individual who wanted to not just kill himself, but to kill everybody on that plane and to take control of the plane just in time to be able to ram it into Tel Aviv.

438
00:39:01.689 --> 00:39:04.049
Pilate said the morning started very normally.

439
00:39:04.969 --> 00:39:06.530
The first officer asked to pray.

440
00:39:07.430 --> 00:39:10.372
then struck him from behind with the clash axe.

441
00:39:10.712 --> 00:39:10.892
Yep.

442
00:39:11.233 --> 00:39:12.754
And notice the prey.

443
00:39:12.854 --> 00:39:16.796
So this is a very common, we're just suicide attacker.

444
00:39:16.896 --> 00:39:22.500
They commonly will go through a certain ritual before they do their suicide attack.

445
00:39:23.674 --> 00:39:28.796
The pilot thought that a heavy piece of equipment had fallen on his head before realising he was under assault.

446
00:39:29.317 --> 00:39:35.500
As his vision tunnelled from blood loss, his sole focus was releasing his seatbelt and crawling towards the cockpit door release.

447
00:39:35.940 --> 00:39:40.222
He explained that each burst of physical effort caused him to fade in and out of consciousness.

448
00:39:40.802 --> 00:39:46.207
He noted the terrifying sensation of feeling the aircraft plunge violently nose down while he was on the floor.

449
00:39:46.587 --> 00:39:55.474
Believing he would not survive, he pushed through to unlock the reinforced door before collapsing face down, which allowed other passengers to see him and rush in.

450
00:39:55.895 --> 00:40:00.779
And then I think from what I heard in the reports, passengers rushed through the door, restrained the...

451
00:40:02.362 --> 00:40:04.264
co-pilot, and I don't know who landed the plane.

452
00:40:04.284 --> 00:40:10.111
Was the pilot able to- Oh, no, there was actually somebody on board who was a pilot, had the knowledge to land the plane.

453
00:40:10.412 --> 00:40:16.919
This was an unintentional backup pilot that just happened to be there, and that was extremely fortuitous.

454
00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:18.461
But what you see here is,

455
00:40:19.162 --> 00:40:26.787
Stephen, are the telltale signs, because if it was suicide, then you would have expected it to happen right away.

456
00:40:27.187 --> 00:40:38.874
And if it was a suicide attacker, the first thing that would come to their mind is if they took control of the plane two and a half hours from Tel Aviv, remember it's a three hour flight to Tel Aviv from Dubai.

457
00:40:38.894 --> 00:40:44.597
If they took control of the plane too far out, well then that would create the opportunity

458
00:40:44.897 --> 00:40:48.961
for Israel to scramble jets to prevent it from striking Tel Aviv.

459
00:40:49.001 --> 00:40:52.244
So you think that they were trying to crash the plane into Israel?

460
00:40:52.564 --> 00:40:52.804
Yes.

461
00:40:53.345 --> 00:40:54.466
I think it's very strong.

462
00:40:54.526 --> 00:40:57.208
And this is what I mean by inspired attacks.

463
00:40:57.628 --> 00:41:05.896
When I saw the first command-directed attack, that's the Houthis on civilians, we've seen an actual inspired terrorist attack that has already happened.

464
00:41:05.996 --> 00:41:06.696
What comes next?

465
00:41:07.177 --> 00:41:08.318
Well, let's keep going.

466
00:41:09.637 --> 00:41:14.120
The biggest unfair advantage in business right now is having people who genuinely understand AI.

467
00:41:14.520 --> 00:41:17.442
And big businesses are hiring them very, very quickly.

468
00:41:17.582 --> 00:41:26.907
AI job postings in the US have roughly doubled since 2023, while postings for VP of AI roles are around 600% up.

469
00:41:27.508 --> 00:41:31.050
If you're running a small business, you can't just build an entire AI team.

470
00:41:31.430 --> 00:41:34.211
but you still want the same advantage that these big businesses have.

471
00:41:34.332 --> 00:41:36.032
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472
00:41:36.373 --> 00:41:42.175
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473
00:41:42.616 --> 00:41:49.559
That could mean building custom AI tools, it could mean automating complex workflows, or creating something that off-the-shelf software simply cannot do.

474
00:41:50.059 --> 00:41:51.240
Because at the end of the day,

475
00:41:51.680 --> 00:41:56.744
It still comes down to human judgment, knowing what's worth building and what good actually looks like.

476
00:41:56.964 --> 00:42:00.607
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477
00:42:00.647 --> 00:42:02.929
That's fiverr with two R's dot com.

478
00:42:04.503 --> 00:42:08.844
This has had probably the single biggest impact on my office.

479
00:42:09.104 --> 00:42:21.507
Of all the products that I've tried that have given me productivity gains or cognitive boosts, I would say that exogenous ketones are in the top three most pivotal things that have given me a massive productivity gain.

480
00:42:21.627 --> 00:42:30.049
It's some Stanford graduates that have been able to basically bottle up the effect you get from being in a ketogenic diet in a small shot of...

481
00:42:30.609 --> 00:42:35.273
that you can take that makes you feel incredibly focused and gives your brain an incredible source of energy.

482
00:42:35.333 --> 00:42:39.056
And the clinical studies that have been done on exogenous ketones have absolutely blown my mind.

483
00:42:39.437 --> 00:42:40.157
I reached out to them.

484
00:42:40.618 --> 00:42:41.999
I became a co-owner in the company.

485
00:42:42.259 --> 00:42:43.540
I became an investor in the company.

486
00:42:43.740 --> 00:42:45.962
And so it's with great pride that I can tell you that this exists.

487
00:42:46.022 --> 00:42:52.148
If you haven't tried these shots, go to ketone.com slash Stephen for 30% off your subscription order.

488
00:42:52.168 --> 00:42:55.190
And you'll also get a free gift with your second shipment.

489
00:42:55.511 --> 00:42:57.813
I still buy my ketone shots predominantly online.

490
00:42:58.193 --> 00:43:05.858
but thankfully I can now grab them at Target whenever I drive past them here in the United States as well because we're now stocked in Target, where your first shot is completely free.

491
00:43:07.062 --> 00:43:08.583
So why did you jump up to the other lobby?

492
00:43:08.603 --> 00:43:14.328
Because we need to see the interactions of this is a crisis that's unfolding.

493
00:43:14.628 --> 00:43:14.928
Okay.

494
00:43:15.029 --> 00:43:23.555
See, what you are seeing here is that the election results are creating incentives to go down this road.

495
00:43:24.016 --> 00:43:26.918
But this doesn't just stay on its own path.

496
00:43:27.078 --> 00:43:32.923
It starts to play a role and come back up and start to affect events here.

497
00:43:32.963 --> 00:43:34.845
Because as this is occurring...

498
00:43:35.365 --> 00:43:37.566
We need to expect gas prices are going up.

499
00:43:38.286 --> 00:43:40.287
We need to expect diesel prices are going up.

500
00:43:40.687 --> 00:43:45.690
We need to expect the housing market, which is already frozen up, is going to freeze up even more.

501
00:43:46.030 --> 00:43:56.054
So this, as we start to see the interaction here or the effects, the effects are not simply what's happening in Iran or even what's happening in the economy.

502
00:43:56.114 --> 00:43:57.415
And this will be in the world economy.

503
00:43:57.815 --> 00:43:59.036
It's going to be what people think.

504
00:43:59.596 --> 00:44:02.878
And we just got a big lesson in what people think in France.

505
00:44:03.439 --> 00:44:06.421
And what happened in France wasn't just a one-day problem.

506
00:44:06.741 --> 00:44:08.662
And it wasn't just a one-off.

507
00:44:08.862 --> 00:44:12.204
It started to spread to other parts of Europe.

508
00:44:12.264 --> 00:44:12.825
The riots.

509
00:44:13.405 --> 00:44:17.368
And a big part of the riots, not the only reason for the riots.

510
00:44:17.428 --> 00:44:20.330
So we have some actual opinion poll data on this.

511
00:44:20.350 --> 00:44:22.011
So I'm not just speaking generally.

512
00:44:22.651 --> 00:44:29.477
But a big part of the reason for the riots are the rising prices due to the Iran war.

513
00:44:29.557 --> 00:44:34.501
Well, this is exactly recreating and making those dynamics worse.

514
00:44:35.061 --> 00:44:39.425
So now we're back over to the possibility here of.

515
00:44:39.945 --> 00:44:43.247
testers and federal agents starting to clash.

516
00:44:43.627 --> 00:44:46.068
This is a moment when they're still counting ballots.

517
00:44:46.588 --> 00:44:53.412
So now there's more and more tests occurring, but it's also at a point where the ballots have not been certified yet.

518
00:44:53.472 --> 00:44:54.792
So notice where we are.

519
00:44:55.273 --> 00:44:57.214
We have moved through November

520
00:44:58.014 --> 00:45:03.356
And we have nowhere near come to the end of transfer of power to the new Congress.

521
00:45:03.396 --> 00:45:07.697
So we have this whole very contentious election.

522
00:45:08.197 --> 00:45:15.219
We have the process here where we still have the counting and the certification of the ballots.

523
00:45:15.659 --> 00:45:23.482
We have that occurring not in isolation, but in addition to an international set of events.

524
00:45:23.942 --> 00:45:25.783
that are just... And also the Russia.

525
00:45:25.943 --> 00:45:27.103
And also the Russia.

526
00:45:27.144 --> 00:45:29.405
So we've skipped over Putin.

527
00:45:29.625 --> 00:45:31.325
So what's happened here also...

528
00:45:31.706 --> 00:45:32.806
In week four?

529
00:45:32.906 --> 00:45:34.667
In week, well, roughly week four.

530
00:45:34.707 --> 00:45:36.888
This would be around Thanksgiving, possibly.

531
00:45:36.908 --> 00:45:41.550
You can't really polymarket it to the day, Stephen, but we're just giving the sequence.

532
00:45:41.570 --> 00:45:50.014
So as the Iran war is escalating, now we have the issue of, will there be an actual deal

533
00:45:50.554 --> 00:45:54.558
with Trump and Putin that prevents Putin from escalating on Ukraine.

534
00:45:54.799 --> 00:45:59.784
Putin isn't just interested in some sort of, you know, photo op with President Trump.

535
00:46:00.264 --> 00:46:09.614
What he wants out of President Trump is he wants there to be real pressure on Ukraine to cave to Putin's demands.

536
00:46:09.854 --> 00:46:11.856
What do you think Putin wants from Ukraine?

537
00:46:12.537 --> 00:46:13.778
What do you think he wants generally?

538
00:46:14.018 --> 00:46:16.139
Well, let's look at some of the maps.

539
00:46:16.179 --> 00:46:16.979
I've got a map.

540
00:46:17.280 --> 00:46:17.580
Yeah.

541
00:46:17.620 --> 00:46:21.102
So a really good, you know, understand this.

542
00:46:22.062 --> 00:46:30.807
You see is in this map, which is August of 2022, four months after Putin invaded Ukraine.

543
00:46:31.287 --> 00:46:37.070
You can see that the lines here have settled down into eastern Ukraine.

544
00:46:37.450 --> 00:46:40.932
You can see there's no longer Russian forces around Kiev.

545
00:46:40.952 --> 00:46:41.052
Yeah.

546
00:46:41.532 --> 00:46:47.034
It's all on the edges of the south of Ukraine and the east of Ukraine.

547
00:46:47.414 --> 00:46:50.915
And what you can see is this is Donetsk.

548
00:46:51.315 --> 00:46:55.056
These are some of the areas that Putin has already annexed.

549
00:46:55.096 --> 00:46:56.716
He's officially annexed them.

550
00:46:57.256 --> 00:46:58.837
And also this is Crimea.

551
00:46:59.757 --> 00:47:08.421
you see is that Putin is still wanting to gain at least the rest of this territory right around here.

552
00:47:08.481 --> 00:47:13.483
These are the pieces of these four oblasts that he has not conquered yet.

553
00:47:14.083 --> 00:47:17.785
He has officially annexed them into Russia.

554
00:47:18.145 --> 00:47:23.067
He's actually passed laws in Russia, but he has not physically taken control of them.

555
00:47:23.107 --> 00:47:24.468
So at a minimum,

556
00:47:24.648 --> 00:47:28.769
is interested in controlling this bit of white around here and here.

557
00:47:29.109 --> 00:47:32.189
And notice at this point, he's pretty far away from that.

558
00:47:32.529 --> 00:47:43.631
Now he may also, and he's talked about an area called Novy Russia, Russia, which is, this would be the next set of oblasts just behind the first four.

559
00:47:43.811 --> 00:47:54.113
And that is this area called Novy Russia, which is also where vast numbers of Russian speakers also live in Ukraine.

560
00:47:54.554 --> 00:48:01.883
So the debate here is whether Putin only wants this white territory around here, or does he also want this?

561
00:48:01.943 --> 00:48:04.006
But let's look where he is four years later.

562
00:48:04.847 --> 00:48:09.333
After four solid years and the loss at a minimum of

563
00:48:09.553 --> 00:48:13.515
of 250,000 dead Russians.

564
00:48:13.795 --> 00:48:15.215
This is the minimum, Stephen.

565
00:48:15.575 --> 00:48:26.419
There's counts that go far higher than that, but these are the counts based on obituary so that we're really sure by name that at least that number of Russians have died.

566
00:48:27.020 --> 00:48:29.340
Look at how far he is away.

567
00:48:29.501 --> 00:48:30.541
Look at the white.

568
00:48:31.001 --> 00:48:31.521
He's gained a

569
00:48:33.542 --> 00:48:36.404
about 1% of Ukraine territory.

570
00:48:36.824 --> 00:48:42.707
But look how far away he still is from that white area I just pointed out.

571
00:48:43.228 --> 00:48:45.069
This is July, 2026.

572
00:48:45.929 --> 00:48:49.211
And he of course is nowhere near the second force.

573
00:48:49.271 --> 00:49:00.998
So he is, we, so when we say that Putin wants a deal, this is not Putin settling for some sort of a signed piece of paper where he's just going to have a photo op with Trump.

574
00:49:01.298 --> 00:49:07.521
What he wants Trump to do is deliver the territory that he wants in Ukraine.

575
00:49:07.641 --> 00:49:08.402
What do you think is going to happen?

576
00:49:08.522 --> 00:49:12.024
I don't think Putin is going to get – Trump is not going to be able to deliver.

577
00:49:12.084 --> 00:49:16.286
Trump can say that he'll deliver it, but he can't do that on his own.

578
00:49:16.566 --> 00:49:19.948
Only Ukraine could deliver that territory.

579
00:49:19.968 --> 00:49:20.648
Right.

580
00:49:20.728 --> 00:49:31.037
For Zelensky to truly surrender that territory, there's a good chance he'll be killed by his own people, his own military, his own— Would kill him if he gave it up.

581
00:49:31.177 --> 00:49:31.778
Oh, my gosh.

582
00:49:31.838 --> 00:49:32.798
Yes, yes, yes.

583
00:49:32.859 --> 00:49:38.203
So what people don't know about international politics—I mean, smart people don't know.

584
00:49:38.403 --> 00:49:42.287
People even know a lot of history—is leaders—

585
00:49:42.827 --> 00:49:46.348
take dramatic risks when they're losers.

586
00:49:46.528 --> 00:49:49.449
I just explained to you the risks that Trump was taking here.

587
00:49:50.129 --> 00:50:07.893
For someone in Putin's position or Zelensky's position, where they're literally talking about whether or not they will gain or surrender pieces of territory, for Zelensky to actually surrender not just the territory Putin currently has but even more—

588
00:50:08.673 --> 00:50:11.816
This is taking his life in his hands and his family's life in his hands.

589
00:50:12.137 --> 00:50:12.938
What's number seven?

590
00:50:13.258 --> 00:50:15.400
Ah, so let's keep looking.

591
00:50:15.781 --> 00:50:20.205
This is when Putin, because, doesn't get the territory.

592
00:50:20.726 --> 00:50:22.327
This is when Putin escalates.

593
00:50:22.468 --> 00:50:24.430
This is the most likely time...

594
00:50:25.050 --> 00:50:29.131
after Putin is sure that Trump can't deliver any more territory.

595
00:50:29.531 --> 00:50:31.852
This is right around Thanksgiving.

596
00:50:32.092 --> 00:50:42.115
This is a likely possible time here when Putin is going to start to realize he can't get territory from Trump, Ukrainian territory from Trump.

597
00:50:42.595 --> 00:50:50.717
So he moves to his next plan, which is the winter attacking the electric power stations in Kiev,

598
00:50:51.277 --> 00:50:59.503
Kharkiv, Odessa, that is the capital city of Ukraine, and two of the major cities in Ukraine near the areas he wants to control.

599
00:51:00.244 --> 00:51:11.233
And by attacking those electric power areas, he's not looking to just cause a couple of days of brownout where you don't have your air conditioning or your heating for a couple of days.

600
00:51:11.873 --> 00:51:17.176
A plan is to knock out 90% of the power in those cities.

601
00:51:17.637 --> 00:51:19.037
And that would keep that out.

602
00:51:19.057 --> 00:51:25.301
If you truly knock that out for that amount, this is probably going to last a month or two.

603
00:51:25.741 --> 00:51:28.283
This is very much his own escalation trap.

604
00:51:28.563 --> 00:51:41.470
Very much Putin is in an escalation trap because Putin started this by launching almost 200,000 Russian troops in order to not just take the southern part of Ukraine and eastern part of Ukraine.

605
00:51:41.730 --> 00:51:43.131
Remember, they were surrounding Kyiv.

606
00:51:43.672 --> 00:51:45.613
The idea here was to take Kyiv.

607
00:51:46.473 --> 00:51:51.861
So this was to take almost half of the country, and he lost.

608
00:51:52.182 --> 00:52:02.296
So he is in his own escalation trap, Putin is, because if he accepts surrender, if he accepts capitulation, now—

609
00:52:03.130 --> 00:52:22.131
He has his own military to deal with, and he faces not just humiliation and a horrible legacy in history, but he really faces the fate of a lot of authoritarian leaders do when they lose major wars, which is being killed.

610
00:52:22.272 --> 00:52:24.074
What do you think is going to happen with both of these wars?

611
00:52:24.574 --> 00:52:27.036
I think they're going to happen at the same time.

612
00:52:27.076 --> 00:52:39.827
What this chart is doing, what we're really showing here on this chart, is all three of these dynamics are occurring over literally the same eight weeks.

613
00:52:40.007 --> 00:52:40.968
And what happens next?

614
00:52:43.130 --> 00:52:45.591
they start to interact with each other.

615
00:52:46.071 --> 00:52:56.254
So now, as we see that we're starting to see the escalation here of violent populism starting in a small way for real.

616
00:52:56.494 --> 00:52:59.995
And when you say violent populism, what does violent populism mean?

617
00:53:00.795 --> 00:53:03.136
Violent populism is when...

618
00:53:05.086 --> 00:53:18.393
Political violence moves from the fringe to the mainstream, where you have not just small numbers of violent actors, but large numbers of violent actors.

619
00:53:18.853 --> 00:53:20.474
You don't just have an...

620
00:53:21.294 --> 00:53:24.016
isolated political assassination attempt.

621
00:53:24.036 --> 00:53:26.657
You have strings of them over a period of years.

622
00:53:27.218 --> 00:53:33.842
And you don't just have a protest that's a localized protest over, say, a police beating.

623
00:53:33.862 --> 00:53:39.105
Rodney King would be the classic example of a localized protest where

624
00:53:39.605 --> 00:53:43.506
In LA, there were four days of riots, but only in LA.

625
00:53:43.926 --> 00:53:45.627
That was in the early 1990s.

626
00:53:46.027 --> 00:53:48.948
With violent populism, this starts to spread.

627
00:53:49.268 --> 00:53:52.569
It starts to spread and become much, much more significant.

628
00:53:52.669 --> 00:53:55.910
COLLEEN O'BRIEN Was that kind of like the Black Lives Matter protests which spread across the world?

629
00:53:55.930 --> 00:53:56.670
DAVID RUBEN Exactly.

630
00:53:56.850 --> 00:54:07.833
It happened was a single focal point event, and I'm going to show you how these actually occur in just a moment, can spread like wildfire.

631
00:54:08.633 --> 00:54:17.280
Because with violent populism, political violence takes on a whole new dimension, Stephen.

632
00:54:17.781 --> 00:54:19.142
Let me explain what I mean.

633
00:54:19.802 --> 00:54:24.666
I like to use the analogy for violent populism of a wildfire.

634
00:54:24.726 --> 00:54:25.006
Right.

635
00:54:25.787 --> 00:54:38.350
And the part of the reason for that is because a lot of people know about wildfires, and they know that in why we have a wildfire is we have this combustible material.

636
00:54:39.570 --> 00:54:46.712
It's often dry wood that's been sitting there, and maybe with global warming, we've gotten more of it.

637
00:54:47.012 --> 00:54:48.072
And this is predictable.

638
00:54:48.132 --> 00:54:55.094
We can actually predict the size of the combustible material in a wildfire season.

639
00:54:55.754 --> 00:55:00.400
But what we can't do in wildfire season is predict the spark.

640
00:55:01.121 --> 00:55:04.005
What is the spark that's going to set this off?

641
00:55:04.065 --> 00:55:05.868
These are always unpredictable.

642
00:55:06.468 --> 00:55:09.693
And the sparks can be a cigarette butt that's thrown in.

643
00:55:10.133 --> 00:55:12.637
So let me just show you what that might look like.

644
00:55:13.077 --> 00:55:16.280
So just in this analogy, what is the combustible material?

645
00:55:16.840 --> 00:55:31.032
In this analogy, the combustible material with violent populism are the millions of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum who support political violence for their goals.

646
00:55:31.872 --> 00:55:39.818
And today, we have over 40 million Americans who support political violence for Trump's goals.

647
00:55:40.579 --> 00:55:47.004
We have over 60 million Americans who support political violence against Trump's goals.

648
00:55:47.444 --> 00:55:50.947
They are the combustible material that can be set off.

649
00:55:51.367 --> 00:55:52.828
So you're saying with that

650
00:55:53.693 --> 00:56:01.800
pretext, with the sort of anger, and with people being more supportive of violence to achieve their political goals, all it's going to take is a spark.

651
00:56:02.380 --> 00:56:04.142
All it's going to take is a spark.

652
00:56:05.182 --> 00:56:12.508
And imagine, let's use also, because we already mentioned George Floyd, let's use January 6th as an example.

653
00:56:13.029 --> 00:56:19.634
What happened on January 6th is President Trump used his rhetoric, a tweet,

654
00:56:23.257 --> 00:56:28.140
a MAGA to Washington to listen to him at the Ellipse.

655
00:56:28.160 --> 00:56:38.165
Then when they were there at the Ellipse, he told them to march on the Capitol, still kind of channeling where all the dry combustible material were.

656
00:56:38.905 --> 00:56:43.047
Then what happened is there was the true spark.

657
00:56:43.727 --> 00:56:47.930
And what was that true spark that set off January 6th?

658
00:56:48.870 --> 00:56:54.872
It was another tweet by Trump where he told them Mike Pence had let them down.

659
00:56:55.632 --> 00:57:04.295
At that moment, that's when the crowd burst through to the Capitol in multiple places in response to that tweet.

660
00:57:04.335 --> 00:57:09.857
And that's when you can hear the chants, hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence.

661
00:57:10.538 --> 00:57:14.179
That's violent populism in action.

662
00:57:18.834 --> 00:57:24.157
And notice what we need is just like what you did, which is we need a fire break.

663
00:57:24.957 --> 00:57:27.738
And we don't want to wait until the next fire.

664
00:57:28.359 --> 00:57:39.164
Because if we wait until the next wildfires to occur, it may happen and spread so quickly, Stephen, that we may be in a situation like France.

665
00:57:39.724 --> 00:57:40.725
So notice in France.

666
00:57:41.305 --> 00:57:48.693
that this wasn't just a localized event where it was a protest that got out of hand against one government building.

667
00:57:49.374 --> 00:57:52.858
This was a series of protests that got out of hand.

668
00:57:53.579 --> 00:57:59.666
And they got out of hand just in Paris, but in multiple cities in France.

669
00:58:00.146 --> 00:58:01.908
And then a week later...

670
00:58:02.669 --> 00:58:07.391
that happened again and wasn't just limited to Paris and cities in France.

671
00:58:07.812 --> 00:58:10.293
It spread beyond itself.

672
00:58:10.873 --> 00:58:16.496
So this is what I mean by violent populism starting to emerge.

673
00:58:16.816 --> 00:58:25.361
And these clashes, this wing of the federal agents and protesters over, say, possibly ballot counting.

674
00:58:25.861 --> 00:58:27.662
This is what I mean by a focal point of that.

675
00:58:28.102 --> 00:58:35.224
It's literally an event here that can act as a spark and it can touch off those sentiments.

676
00:58:35.964 --> 00:58:39.125
And that is violent populism in action.

677
00:58:39.966 --> 00:58:47.868
So now we have, notice we have actual major problems starting to happen inside the United States.

678
00:58:48.468 --> 00:58:53.473
We have major problems in Iran that are just getting worse, and these are feeding each other.

679
00:58:53.933 --> 00:59:02.442
We have major problems that are happening in the Russian-Ukraine war, and this, too, is going to increase energy prices.

680
00:59:03.583 --> 00:59:07.667
These are not disconnected events anymore, Stephen.

681
00:59:07.807 --> 00:59:08.228
Is that why—

682
00:59:09.400 --> 00:59:14.423
I think it was Wes Streeting that said, we in the UK need to stock up on this stuff.

683
00:59:14.443 --> 00:59:17.725
That is exactly why I think they are stocking.

684
00:59:17.805 --> 00:59:26.771
They're asking the public to stock up on batteries so that in case the internet goes that, why would you stock up on batteries?

685
00:59:27.351 --> 00:59:30.975
Because there's more problems down the road here.

686
00:59:31.296 --> 00:59:33.979
The one that told me he said this, I actually missed that piece of news.

687
00:59:34.299 --> 00:59:34.519
Yes.

688
00:59:34.579 --> 00:59:38.203
You're saying the UK government has asked people in the UK to stock up on batteries.

689
00:59:38.223 --> 00:59:41.707
On batteries, beans, flashlights, water.

690
00:59:42.448 --> 00:59:59.822
Because what can happen as this pattern, as this escalation gets worse and worse, is you can start to see that Ukraine will start to bash back here against Russia.

691
01:00:00.442 --> 01:00:05.547
And then Russia may start to punish the supporters of Ukraine and Europe

692
01:00:06.167 --> 01:00:09.850
including right here in London, right here in Britain.

693
01:00:09.890 --> 01:00:22.760
And that's why the defense minister is calling for preparations, not saying there's a tactical intelligence that there is a threat coming tomorrow.

694
01:00:23.440 --> 01:00:34.152
But I believe looking at something like this board that we are outlining, Stephen, and looking at this and saying, well, wait a second, wait a second.

695
01:00:34.252 --> 01:00:40.139
The risk here of this starting to get out of control is starting to become real.

696
01:00:40.699 --> 01:00:55.889
And rather than wait for a panic to ensue after there would be a cyber attack that would say knock out the Internet for several days or knock out electric power in Britain for several for several days.

697
01:00:56.689 --> 01:01:02.073
Go ahead, stock up on some stuff now so you can ride out some of those issues.

698
01:01:02.633 --> 01:01:20.465
So the UK government has officially told households to prepare for national emergencies, launching the Be Ready campaign, which advises every family to stockpile at least three days worth of essential supplies to survive potential hostile state attacks, cyber warfare or major infrastructure collapse.

699
01:01:20.926 --> 01:01:30.112
Britons are being asked to store three litres of bottled water per person per day, a three-day cache of non-perishable supplies.

700
01:01:30.252 --> 01:01:49.083
tinned food alongside battery-powered wind-up torches radios that's why this yep no britney spears battery-powered radios our banks first aid kits and physical physical cash

701
01:01:50.623 --> 01:01:54.485
And the reason for physical cash, Stephen, is because ATMs won't work.

702
01:01:54.965 --> 01:02:07.752
Pointing directly to the reality of modern conflict and state-sponsored sabotage, the stark question being put to the public is how ordinary people would cope in a moment where electronic payment systems or local supermarket supply chains suddenly collapsed.

703
01:02:08.252 --> 01:02:16.997
A warning that has already driven panic buying, stripping supermarket shelves of bottled water and canned goods while sparking a massive run on emergency supplies across the entire country.

704
01:02:17.437 --> 01:02:18.578
That is fucking crazy.

705
01:02:18.938 --> 01:02:19.238
It is.

706
01:02:19.838 --> 01:02:28.482
And it's showing, Stephen, that governments are already paying attention to the risks that we're laying out here.

707
01:02:29.162 --> 01:02:41.287
So when we see the United States pulling back its personnel and families from embassies around the Middle East, when we see the British government...

708
01:02:41.967 --> 01:02:56.300
initiating a be ready three-day preparation campaign, what you are seeing is governments are understanding the risks that are starting to emerge.

709
01:02:57.688 --> 01:03:01.772
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710
01:03:02.013 --> 01:03:07.038
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711
01:03:07.198 --> 01:03:09.681
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712
01:03:10.121 --> 01:03:13.525
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713
01:03:13.565 --> 01:03:17.269
You can think of them like team members that are working with me to do work right now.

714
01:03:17.429 --> 01:03:29.100
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715
01:03:29.320 --> 01:03:34.345
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716
01:03:34.445 --> 01:03:35.506
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717
01:03:35.826 --> 01:03:36.947
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718
01:03:37.067 --> 01:03:45.055
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719
01:03:45.255 --> 01:03:47.357
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720
01:03:47.657 --> 01:03:55.064
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721
01:03:55.785 --> 01:03:58.207
x.ai.doac.

722
01:03:59.308 --> 01:04:00.589
So what happens next?

723
01:04:00.889 --> 01:04:02.191
So as we keep going...

724
01:04:03.263 --> 01:04:06.385
Now- David Morgan- US water systems forced to manual.

725
01:04:06.405 --> 01:04:07.386
David Morgan- Yeah.

726
01:04:07.446 --> 01:04:10.788
So this is where the real danger starts to come in.

727
01:04:10.948 --> 01:04:26.618
Once we see cyber attacks, we need to understand that this summer in Minnesota and in a number of other states in the United States, in July, the power and the water went out.

728
01:04:27.619 --> 01:04:29.140
So we had a water problem.

729
01:04:29.160 --> 01:04:29.780
And

730
01:04:30.268 --> 01:04:33.709
And the New York Times was the only paper to cover this.

731
01:04:34.469 --> 01:04:44.891
And the New York Times quoted directly from U.S. intelligence that said this was most likely Iran doing a cyber attack inside the United States.

732
01:04:45.951 --> 01:04:47.711
The story was never followed up again.

733
01:04:48.871 --> 01:04:51.112
That story was not repeated by other agencies.

734
01:04:51.592 --> 01:04:57.993
That has all the hallmarks of U.S. intelligence telling the papers not to cover the story.

735
01:04:59.175 --> 01:05:01.803
Now, what happened in the case is we know as a fact.

736
01:05:01.823 --> 01:05:02.825
You think that's what happened?

737
01:05:03.708 --> 01:05:03.949
Well...

738
01:05:04.895 --> 01:05:08.076
I've spent a lot of time with U.S. intelligence community.

739
01:05:08.737 --> 01:05:10.778
So in the 90s, I had a clearance.

740
01:05:10.878 --> 01:05:15.840
But in the last 20, 30 years, I've spent an enormous amount of time with our intelligence community.

741
01:05:16.580 --> 01:05:31.827
And the quotes, the language in that article, if people will go back to the article, you'll see that the article is quoting specific people and saying that it has Iran's fingerprints for cyber attack.

742
01:05:32.587 --> 01:05:34.108
Now, that's important.

743
01:05:34.329 --> 01:05:51.345
That phrasing is very important, Stephen, because that's exactly the phrasing, the unclassified phrasing that is used to understand the cyber capabilities of different actors, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China.

744
01:05:51.785 --> 01:05:54.967
Do you think the water went out in Minnesota because Iran didn't attack?

745
01:05:55.007 --> 01:05:56.608
I think it's most likely Iran.

746
01:05:56.628 --> 01:06:03.492
Yes, I do think we can't say for certain, but I would not put it forward if I didn't think that was a credible report.

747
01:06:03.632 --> 01:06:07.194
And then you think the US government might have had a word with some journalists and said, listen.

748
01:06:07.394 --> 01:06:08.335
Take it off the table.

749
01:06:08.535 --> 01:06:09.495
Don't talk about it.

750
01:06:09.615 --> 01:06:10.196
Do they do that?

751
01:06:10.961 --> 01:06:11.381
They do.

752
01:06:11.641 --> 01:06:12.282
They do.

753
01:06:12.622 --> 01:06:26.007
Gulf War in 1991, there was a big effort by the Pentagon to work with CNN, ABC, others in the news to, in fact, control some of the news that was coming out.

754
01:06:26.528 --> 01:06:31.590
And in the, up to the 2003 Iraq War, this continued.

755
01:06:32.110 --> 01:06:34.291
And one of the times I was on the set.

756
01:06:34.451 --> 01:06:35.371
So I was on the set.

757
01:06:35.391 --> 01:06:38.613
I won't, I don't want to embarrass the journalists, but I was on the set in CNN.

758
01:06:39.333 --> 01:06:43.175
And they flew me into New York and I was literally on a set similar like your team.

759
01:06:43.515 --> 01:06:45.976
I was just talking about how great your team is compared to theirs.

760
01:06:46.636 --> 01:06:52.679
And sitting around the table and the reporter, who's a famous reporter, had me on with certain generals.

761
01:06:53.399 --> 01:06:58.721
And before the cameras rolled, she said, so let's let's start with the ground rules.

762
01:06:58.961 --> 01:07:00.342
What should we not say?

763
01:07:00.622 --> 01:07:02.103
What should we not ask you?

764
01:07:02.283 --> 01:07:04.844
What should we not talk about with the public?

765
01:07:04.864 --> 01:07:04.964
Yeah.

766
01:07:05.544 --> 01:07:06.946
Just imagine that, Stephen.

767
01:07:07.286 --> 01:07:08.067
Imagine that.

768
01:07:08.528 --> 01:07:12.192
They would ask you to tell them

769
01:07:13.469 --> 01:07:15.090
what they can't share with the public.

770
01:07:15.810 --> 01:07:24.173
They ask people from the administration who work, this was the Bush administration, the normal role of the journalist is to do the opposite.

771
01:07:24.394 --> 01:07:38.920
In fact, CNN very, very famously got started by interviewing Saddam Hussein in the 19, or not got started, but one of the big things that they got a lot of prominence was interviewing Saddam Hussein when the US military went apoplectic when they did.

772
01:07:39.260 --> 01:07:39.500
So far,

773
01:07:39.940 --> 01:07:52.090
This is what I mean by when you ask me, would it be possible for the U.S., for intelligence, U.S. government to ask media to, for the good, they would say for the good of national security, to cool it on a story?

774
01:07:52.210 --> 01:07:53.971
And the fact is, I've seen it myself.

775
01:07:54.972 --> 01:07:55.733
Wow, what's next?

776
01:07:55.913 --> 01:07:58.835
So now, this is the big problem we worry about.

777
01:07:59.776 --> 01:08:01.818
I can't tell you this is certain to come.

778
01:08:02.238 --> 01:08:03.199
Would not want to do that.

779
01:08:03.219 --> 01:08:05.240
I'm telling you this is the pathway.

780
01:08:05.260 --> 01:08:05.541
Okay.

781
01:08:06.176 --> 01:08:15.766
And if we get all the way down to this part of the pathway, and that's an if, then we have to worry about real troops in the streets when?

782
01:08:17.067 --> 01:08:20.491
In the weeks just before the Congress would be seated.

783
01:08:20.891 --> 01:08:23.114
So American troops in American streets?

784
01:08:23.774 --> 01:08:25.616
American troops in American streets.

785
01:08:26.117 --> 01:08:26.898
Has that happened before?

786
01:08:26.918 --> 01:08:26.978
No.

787
01:08:27.606 --> 01:08:35.393
since the 50s and the 60s, when in the 50s, this was a completely different environment.

788
01:08:35.933 --> 01:08:46.582
So President Trump, just to put why this is even credible at all, on October 1st in Time magazine, he was interviewed about would he declare the Insurrection Act.

789
01:08:47.443 --> 01:08:51.966
And he said specifically that he might and he wouldn't take it off the table.

790
01:08:52.687 --> 01:09:00.638
Well, the Insurrection Act would be the use of U.S. military, or it could be the National Guard or the reserves.

791
01:09:00.658 --> 01:09:07.808
It wouldn't have to be exactly the serving military, but the use of the military in American cities.

792
01:09:08.769 --> 01:09:10.470
And that is a huge step.

793
01:09:10.811 --> 01:09:12.512
It's rarely been used.

794
01:09:13.633 --> 01:09:24.901
And that's a step which, under the circumstances of the environment I am explaining, you can see that, first of all, there would be an ongoing escalation in the environment.

795
01:09:25.541 --> 01:09:27.463
Just one war, but we now have two wars.

796
01:09:27.703 --> 01:09:30.825
And this could be building and building at this point in time.

797
01:09:31.386 --> 01:09:38.311
That would create the environment in which there is an actual international emergency that's occurring.

798
01:09:38.391 --> 01:09:40.112
So the Insurrection Act is met.

799
01:09:40.152 --> 01:09:42.154
And what does that mean, the Insurrection Act?

800
01:09:42.414 --> 01:09:58.047
The Insurrection Act is where the president has emergency powers to use the U.S. military or, as I said, National Guard or the reserves within the borders of the United States against the citizens of the United States.

801
01:09:58.528 --> 01:10:08.035
So normally we have a policy called Passe Comitatus, where the president is not using the U.S. military inside of our own borders.

802
01:10:08.816 --> 01:10:22.306
For obvious reasons, Stephen, which is, but he just takes a moment in history, knows that authoritarian states have routinely used their military to suppress their own population.

803
01:10:22.346 --> 01:10:30.272
So the United States, the leading democracy in the world, have gone way out of its way to not go down that road.

804
01:10:31.508 --> 01:10:38.892
That's why it's particularly striking when President Trump will not take that option off the table.

805
01:10:39.612 --> 01:10:49.237
And if there was not a war, one could look at the courts and one could think, well, if President Trump tried to invoke the Insurrection Act,

806
01:10:50.237 --> 01:10:55.878
could be taken to court and the courts would oppose that act and it wouldn't come into being.

807
01:10:56.258 --> 01:10:58.359
What happens next in Iran?

808
01:10:58.619 --> 01:11:17.363
What happens next is now we've pushed all the way to look at how much danger there is that's occurring here, how much economic pressure that's occurring, but also notice that the Iranian military, although it's still able to do some strikes—

809
01:11:17.763 --> 01:11:20.905
they probably are pretty significantly paralyzed.

810
01:11:21.285 --> 01:11:23.906
They're not 100% paralyzed by any stretch.

811
01:11:23.946 --> 01:11:30.610
They're able to launch drone strikes, probably missile strikes, probably even cyber attacks.

812
01:11:31.010 --> 01:11:38.855
But that doesn't mean it's the same military as exists today before the three-day war, the three-day air war.

813
01:11:38.875 --> 01:11:41.136
So you think there'll be U.S. ground troops in Iran?

814
01:11:41.818 --> 01:11:45.120
I think there's, yes, I think this is why the Marines are moving.

815
01:11:45.160 --> 01:12:01.269
Because under the circumstances of the sequence I've just laid out for you, a lot of people think that when President Trump is talking about moving U.S. Marines for limited ground operations, this would be necessarily a suicide mission.

816
01:12:01.289 --> 01:12:04.010
Now, it could be a suicide mission, but this is very unlikely.

817
01:12:04.450 --> 01:12:09.633
Much more likely would be the way this played out with instant thunder, which is you would pay...

818
01:12:09.653 --> 01:12:20.356
paralyze as much as you could of the Iranian military, the Iranian military would still have remnants that are able to attack us pretty severely.

819
01:12:21.016 --> 01:12:31.240
Now you have the ground force option to go in to try to deal with localized areas of those remnants, and you have a real reason to do it.

820
01:12:31.640 --> 01:12:37.821
And once we go down this road, Stephen, in fact, I'm quite concerned that once we start the three

821
01:12:40.002 --> 01:12:56.528
This sequence is going to be almost impossible to stop because once you start the three-day bombing campaign, this is going to unleash responses by the remaining elements of the Iran military that can fire at us.

822
01:12:56.728 --> 01:13:03.430
And it will be maximally incentivized to fire at the Gulf states, infrastructure in the Gulf states.

823
01:13:03.770 --> 01:13:08.752
Once you go all the way down this far, now you're in the true forever war.

824
01:13:09.092 --> 01:13:12.973
Now you're in the forever war that we can't really get out of.

825
01:13:13.393 --> 01:13:19.514
And we are now into a world where this is a true emergency.

826
01:13:20.174 --> 01:13:30.216
President Trump will be able to start declaring more and more emergency powers because this will be a true emergency and it won't be over by Christmas.

827
01:13:30.796 --> 01:13:34.397
These eight weeks are the most dangerous eight weeks.

828
01:13:34.837 --> 01:13:44.524
But if we go all the way through this trajectory, Stephen, this will lead into a devastating 2027.

829
01:13:45.525 --> 01:13:48.387
And lastly, what happens in Russia?

830
01:13:49.047 --> 01:13:52.790
Russia, we see that if in fact...

831
01:13:53.680 --> 01:13:57.322
what the defense minister in London is worried about happens.

832
01:13:57.642 --> 01:14:05.546
If those cyber attacks happen, there's going to be enormous pressure on Europe to retaliate directly against Moscow.

833
01:14:06.286 --> 01:14:12.329
This is not a situation where cyber attacks... See, people haven't really experienced cyber warfare.

834
01:14:12.589 --> 01:14:13.410
They've heard about it.

835
01:14:13.630 --> 01:14:14.710
They've read books about it.

836
01:14:15.051 --> 01:14:18.972
There are science fiction books written about it, but they haven't experienced it.

837
01:14:19.033 --> 01:14:21.894
So what I think many people think is, well...

838
01:14:22.314 --> 01:14:26.278
The internet goes out for 30 minutes and it just pops right back in, right?

839
01:14:26.318 --> 01:14:27.520
So what's the big deal?

840
01:14:29.081 --> 01:14:34.066
This isn't the real set of cyber attacks our government has been worrying about for decades.

841
01:14:34.447 --> 01:14:36.128
The real set of cyber attacks.

842
01:14:37.105 --> 01:14:41.947
are much, much more costly on publics, the American public, the European public.

843
01:14:42.667 --> 01:14:46.748
And under those circumstances, those publics are going to demand payback.

844
01:14:47.209 --> 01:14:52.811
Then that's when you actually have Europe retaliating against Moscow.

845
01:14:52.871 --> 01:14:53.951
And you know what that means?

846
01:14:53.991 --> 01:14:57.812
You know what that word, the word is for that when Europe does that, Stephen?

847
01:14:58.873 --> 01:14:59.593
World War III.

848
01:15:00.373 --> 01:15:02.314
That's what World War III looks like.

849
01:15:03.286 --> 01:15:09.288
Many people for months have been discussing, are we in World War III?

850
01:15:09.808 --> 01:15:12.228
The answer is no, we're not in World War III.

851
01:15:12.268 --> 01:15:16.509
We have war happening around the world and in major parts of the world.

852
01:15:17.350 --> 01:15:25.372
What World War III means, when the world's largest powers attack each other's homelands,

853
01:15:26.236 --> 01:15:31.179
and their militaries kill each other, directly engage each other.

854
01:15:31.960 --> 01:15:34.261
That is not the situation today.

855
01:15:35.042 --> 01:15:41.706
And we've been nowhere near that, even with all of the escalations that have happened in the Ukraine war.

856
01:15:41.906 --> 01:15:43.687
But aren't we doing that by proxy?

857
01:15:43.987 --> 01:15:45.188
I. Yeah.

858
01:15:45.328 --> 01:15:48.670
Britain just announced yesterday they're going to give another 10 billion to the Ukraine.

859
01:15:49.170 --> 01:15:52.791
Presumably that money is going to be spent on killing Russians indirectly or directly.

860
01:15:53.492 --> 01:15:55.052
So aren't we in these proxy wars already?

861
01:15:55.593 --> 01:15:58.174
We were in proxy wars during the Cold War.

862
01:15:58.854 --> 01:16:00.435
Almost every year...

863
01:16:01.015 --> 01:16:04.097
from 1947 until 1989.

864
01:16:04.918 --> 01:16:06.880
We were in proxy wars in Africa.

865
01:16:07.400 --> 01:16:09.342
We were in proxy wars in Latin America.

866
01:16:09.862 --> 01:16:12.804
We were in proxy wars in Afghanistan.

867
01:16:12.904 --> 01:16:14.986
So remember the Soviets went into Afghanistan.

868
01:16:15.286 --> 01:16:16.747
We sent in the Mujahideen.

869
01:16:17.028 --> 01:16:18.669
Differences when they attack each other directly.

870
01:16:19.069 --> 01:16:19.850
Exactly.

871
01:16:19.930 --> 01:16:29.677
So proxy wars, we have faced proxy wars almost every year during the Cold War since 1947 and after the Cold War.

872
01:16:30.527 --> 01:16:31.867
That is not a world war.

873
01:16:32.127 --> 01:16:41.349
We're going to use the phrase we're in world war three, then it should have some semblance to world war one or world war two.

874
01:16:41.449 --> 01:16:49.070
And what the real part, I hope everything we're doing here, Steven will prevent it.

875
01:16:49.750 --> 01:16:56.371
So I believe that what we're starting down now, I don't mean eight weeks from now.

876
01:16:56.471 --> 01:16:59.352
I mean, literally from today forward.

877
01:17:00.553 --> 01:17:04.135
We are living through the eight most dangerous weeks in our lives.

878
01:17:05.396 --> 01:17:17.905
I believe that if we allow this momentum to carry on on its own, that it's going to lead to very, very bad outcomes at this part of the calendar.

879
01:17:18.685 --> 01:17:20.006
And we can do a lot.

880
01:17:20.326 --> 01:17:20.967
What can we do?

881
01:17:21.627 --> 01:17:23.489
Number one is...

882
01:17:24.349 --> 01:17:33.593
Every member of Congress who's still in the lame duck Congress now, and who's just been elected to Congress, can say one thing.

883
01:17:34.494 --> 01:17:44.398
No escalation by the Trump administration in Iran until the new Congress is seated, unless Iran strikes first.

884
01:17:45.399 --> 01:17:47.180
Very simple declaration.

885
01:17:48.000 --> 01:17:50.081
This is the core firebreak.

886
01:17:51.051 --> 01:17:55.575
The core firebreak is no escalation on Iran.

887
01:17:57.216 --> 01:18:08.786
The Trump administration called for by every member of Congress sitting now who's in the lame duck Congress and who's just won election to the new Congress on step one.

888
01:18:09.607 --> 01:18:16.913
Step number two is now that we're actually in counting season and certification season,

889
01:18:18.287 --> 01:18:35.521
There should be every governor and every mayor should call on President Trump to hold a two-month moratorium on all federally armed agents in their cities unless the governors and mayors call for it.

890
01:18:36.301 --> 01:18:39.864
A two-month moratorium, so we take off the table

891
01:18:40.865 --> 01:18:45.829
the possibility of violent populism getting out of control.

892
01:18:45.869 --> 01:18:46.730
The key sparks.

893
01:18:46.770 --> 01:18:49.732
We can't take every spark off, but we can take the key sparks.

894
01:18:49.852 --> 01:18:50.513
Is there a third one?

895
01:18:51.233 --> 01:18:55.196
A third one incredibly important, which is that

896
01:18:56.217 --> 01:19:02.219
In all of the conflicts we have just laid out, we have the United States in the middle of them.

897
01:19:02.279 --> 01:19:04.260
We have Iran in the middle of them.

898
01:19:04.320 --> 01:19:07.061
We have Russia in the middle of them.

899
01:19:07.181 --> 01:19:09.722
We have Iran, very central, of course.

900
01:19:10.062 --> 01:19:11.323
We now have Saudi Arabia.

901
01:19:12.738 --> 01:19:18.639
We should have the core countries that are calling themselves mediators.

902
01:19:19.200 --> 01:19:20.440
And who are those countries?

903
01:19:21.140 --> 01:19:24.321
Pakistan, Qatar, and increasingly India.

904
01:19:24.701 --> 01:19:30.922
India has been playing a quiet role behind the scenes with Russia and Ukraine.

905
01:19:31.722 --> 01:19:39.324
Those three countries that have played this role as mediator should call on all of the countries to do one thing.

906
01:19:39.984 --> 01:19:41.945
Hands off civilians.

907
01:19:42.865 --> 01:19:44.706
Hands off civilians.

908
01:19:45.746 --> 01:19:54.948
No direct targeting of civilian infrastructure or civilian residential areas by states.

909
01:19:55.428 --> 01:19:56.528
Those are the three.

910
01:19:56.648 --> 01:20:10.372
If we do those three things, what we're doing is we are establishing fire breaks on those that that momentum of the eight most dangerous weeks in our lives.

911
01:20:10.392 --> 01:20:10.972
And.

912
01:20:11.252 --> 01:20:18.554
And we have that we do not have to simply watch as those eight weeks unfold, Stephen.

913
01:20:18.614 --> 01:20:20.074
What about the general public?

914
01:20:20.454 --> 01:20:21.154
What should they be doing?

915
01:20:21.174 --> 01:20:22.535
Do you take the advice of West Street?

916
01:20:22.555 --> 01:20:23.895
And do you think we should be stockpiling?

917
01:20:24.755 --> 01:20:31.417
Oh, I'm personally not doing that because what will happen is bring that back up for a moment.

918
01:20:31.717 --> 01:20:33.379
Let me show you what's really going to happen.

919
01:20:33.820 --> 01:20:37.164
So now we're at day one.

920
01:20:37.524 --> 01:20:41.329
And let's say day one, we still have a lot of water in our bodies.

921
01:20:41.609 --> 01:20:44.553
So day one, we use one bottle of water.

922
01:20:44.973 --> 01:20:45.154
Mm-hmm.

923
01:20:46.125 --> 01:20:48.567
Now we go through day two.

924
01:20:49.248 --> 01:20:54.492
Day two of the outage, we have to go through both bottles of water because we're now starting to run out of water.

925
01:20:55.212 --> 01:20:56.413
Now we're at day three.

926
01:20:56.713 --> 01:20:57.994
That's what he's told us to do.

927
01:20:58.595 --> 01:21:03.599
Now we're at day three, and we're definitely going through our bottles of water.

928
01:21:04.660 --> 01:21:06.681
Here's the fundamental problem, Stephen.

929
01:21:08.163 --> 01:21:09.363
The attacks can happen again.

930
01:21:10.274 --> 01:21:11.154
You're saying there's no point.

931
01:21:11.535 --> 01:21:12.935
What I'm saying is there's no point.

932
01:21:13.035 --> 01:21:17.497
And what I'm saying is everybody will come to that realization on day one.

933
01:21:18.698 --> 01:21:23.420
That this is not going to prevent the panic.

934
01:21:24.120 --> 01:21:28.502
This is not going to truly buy time those three days.

935
01:21:29.223 --> 01:21:33.104
The way the governments can buy time are those three fire breaks.

936
01:21:33.845 --> 01:21:36.246
And what can every ordinary person do?

937
01:21:37.027 --> 01:21:48.949
They can email, they can text, and they can call their favorite political leader, whoever that is, and tell them to adopt those three firebreaks.

938
01:21:49.549 --> 01:21:54.830
That is how we can navigate this journey and do something about it.

939
01:21:55.250 --> 01:21:58.871
Otherwise, we're just letting the events control us.

940
01:21:59.771 --> 01:22:04.892
I was gonna ask you the question in the book, and the question in the book is basically, what can people do now to prepare for the next five years?

941
01:22:05.772 --> 01:22:07.053
But I think you might have just answered it.

942
01:22:07.573 --> 01:22:09.013
I think I did.

943
01:22:09.153 --> 01:22:15.876
You have this wonderful book that's out now, Our Own Worst Enemies, America in the Age of Violent Populism.

944
01:22:16.356 --> 01:22:21.598
You're someone that's so incredibly well read, decades and decades and decades of the most interesting experience.

945
01:22:22.379 --> 01:22:27.201
Anybody who's interested in these subjects that we've talked about today, this is the definitive book on the subject matter.

946
01:22:27.281 --> 01:22:28.561
It is evidence-based.

947
01:22:28.581 --> 01:22:34.524
There's lots of stats and graphs and figures in here, but also so deeply read on history, as you are, Robert.

948
01:22:35.504 --> 01:22:42.393
Thank you for coming here and thank you for continually keeping the lights on for me because, you know, I remember the first time you came and I thought, what's he talking about escalation trap?

949
01:22:42.413 --> 01:22:43.074
There's no chance.

950
01:22:43.794 --> 01:22:47.619
But it's completely changed my mind on how on what's going on in the world.

951
01:22:47.719 --> 01:22:51.264
And it's actually helped me to understand reality.

952
01:22:51.584 --> 01:22:58.949
and the complex, messy reality of war and incentives and ego and humans and the human cost on the other end of it.

953
01:22:59.049 --> 01:23:10.938
And, you know, again, we always talk about Ukraine and Iran, but I think it's worth also remembering that there are millions, tens and tens and tens of millions of people, probably, what, 130 million people combined, 40 million in Ukraine, 90 million in Iran?

954
01:23:11.138 --> 01:23:11.718
Absolutely.

955
01:23:11.738 --> 01:23:13.059
That are right in the heart of all of this.

956
01:23:13.419 --> 01:23:18.083
And, you know, it's all well and good me sat here in our big office and studio lamenting about...

957
01:23:19.063 --> 01:23:26.770
what's going to happen to them, but there are very real people that are living there, trying to live their lives amidst all of this absolute craziness and chaos, and my heart goes out to them.

958
01:23:27.270 --> 01:23:43.163
And Stephen, I just want to say, one of the most important things that's happening is social media is not just a problem, but you're seeing with your show, social media can be a tremendous help.

959
01:23:44.024 --> 01:23:48.925
On the times I've come on your show, we have really laid out some pretty dark scenarios.

960
01:23:49.766 --> 01:23:57.568
And after the show, because of so many people, what happens is the questions come to the key leaders.

961
01:23:58.388 --> 01:24:10.352
One of the key things when I was on just the last time in July, we talked about, we were just about to unleash a whole series of attacks with CENCOM to go after Iran's drone network.

962
01:24:10.812 --> 01:24:12.032
This would have been a disaster.

963
01:24:12.193 --> 01:24:15.254
This would not have ended in improving matters here.

964
01:24:15.514 --> 01:24:18.975
And there was tremendous momentum building for that.

965
01:24:19.635 --> 01:24:24.477
And this was generals, others in the military, ex-military.

966
01:24:24.617 --> 01:24:29.399
And I know because what happened after our show is changed.

967
01:24:29.759 --> 01:24:30.780
And suddenly...

968
01:24:31.814 --> 01:24:36.060
what was the reality, the real issues came to the fore.

969
01:24:36.581 --> 01:24:40.726
And that's one of the big reasons I believe we didn't go down that dark road.

970
01:24:40.747 --> 01:24:43.250
It's because of- I think it's because of the diary.

971
01:24:43.470 --> 01:24:44.712
I think it's because of the diary.

972
01:24:44.772 --> 01:24:46.234
And I think it's not just the diary.

973
01:24:46.354 --> 01:24:48.758
I think it's because on social media,

974
01:24:49.138 --> 01:25:07.750
What we're able to do today that we could not do 20 years ago when we went into Iraq and Afghanistan is we're able to have serious substantive conversations where we lay out the actual risks and consequences, the true worst cases that could come.

975
01:25:07.770 --> 01:25:10.192
Have you been contacted by anybody at the White House?

976
01:25:10.955 --> 01:25:33.217
advised every white house since are you advising this one i've advised every white house you've been quiet robert i've advised every white house have you been contacted by the white house i've advised every white house since 9-11 and if there's um any any contact i have i can't let you off the hook any contact i have i can't i could never ever and and let me just simply let me just sit here all day robert

977
01:25:33.737 --> 01:25:36.920
Have you been contacted by the White House?

978
01:25:37.401 --> 01:25:41.784
You don't have to tell me who, but since you've come on this show, have they contacted you for advice?

979
01:25:42.225 --> 01:25:49.631
So, I've been, I've advised Chief Staff of the Air Force, and I've advised every White House since 9-11.

980
01:25:49.872 --> 01:25:51.833
I'm incredibly proud of that.

981
01:25:52.314 --> 01:25:55.276
And the fact of the matter is, show.

982
01:25:56.217 --> 01:26:04.241
And your show, among other shows, but your show is a leading show, raises the profile of the consequences.

983
01:26:04.622 --> 01:26:09.004
And that is incredibly important as we go forward.

984
01:26:09.024 --> 01:26:12.646
I'm not going to ask you about the White House, but have people contacted you in positions of power?

985
01:26:12.906 --> 01:26:13.146
Yes.

986
01:26:13.587 --> 01:26:13.847
Okay.

987
01:26:14.187 --> 01:26:18.729
Because I remember last time you were on the show, I remember I asked you, I said, would you advise this White House?

988
01:26:18.989 --> 01:26:19.490
Have they reached out?

989
01:26:19.510 --> 01:26:21.531
And you said no to me when we first met.

990
01:26:22.626 --> 01:26:25.468
So subsequently you've been contacted by people in positions of power.

991
01:26:25.908 --> 01:26:40.157
Any time somebody in a position of power reaches out, and that can be in America and outside of America, it is an incredible honor for me to the best advice I possibly can.

992
01:26:41.218 --> 01:26:44.100
And I will continue to do that every day.

993
01:26:44.120 --> 01:26:45.621
Are you advising the White House?

994
01:26:46.254 --> 01:26:53.281
I'm just telling you, Stephen, that I, um, um, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, no, I'm not telling you I'm doing that.

995
01:26:53.421 --> 01:26:59.968
I'm telling you that what, um, I am, uh, incredibly honored when people of power reach out.

996
01:27:00.328 --> 01:27:08.836
And the fact of the matter is, um, Stephen, that the best way to, the best way, the best way to influence the world

997
01:27:09.817 --> 01:27:12.038
is not always behind closed doors.

998
01:27:12.178 --> 01:27:13.659
It does happen sometimes.

999
01:27:14.259 --> 01:27:22.763
I'm really trying to tell you that what happens when we explain the actual consequences or the danger zone we're moving into.

1000
01:27:22.783 --> 01:27:23.083
I get it.

1001
01:27:23.183 --> 01:27:23.924
I get it, Robert.

1002
01:27:23.944 --> 01:27:25.304
This is how it raises.

1003
01:27:25.384 --> 01:27:28.646
I'm saying, so are you advising people in power in the United States?

1004
01:27:29.569 --> 01:27:32.990
I'm just telling you, people in power have contacted me.

1005
01:27:33.050 --> 01:27:36.551
It's been a tremendous honor, and I'm very glad to do that.

1006
01:27:37.111 --> 01:27:37.931
I'm glad they're listening.

1007
01:27:39.171 --> 01:27:39.711
Are they listening?

1008
01:27:40.511 --> 01:27:41.232
These people in power?

1009
01:27:41.852 --> 01:27:53.994
Stephen, at some point, we're going to be able to look back on this and be able to say, how did we get through this period of time?

1010
01:27:54.555 --> 01:27:56.315
And we're going to have those conversations.

1011
01:27:56.635 --> 01:27:58.599
But the way we're going to do this is...

1012
01:27:58.619 --> 01:27:59.882
Listen, listen.

1013
01:28:00.843 --> 01:28:02.386
I'm asking, are they listening?

1014
01:28:03.482 --> 01:28:05.903
Are the people you, I'm not asking who they are, what they're asking you about.

1015
01:28:05.923 --> 01:28:07.783
I'm saying, are they listening?

1016
01:28:08.203 --> 01:28:16.985
So the people in power who have contacted me do believe are listening, whether they're in the United States or around the world.

1017
01:28:17.626 --> 01:28:30.789
And I do believe that, and I just want to point out that one of the big issues here is communicating the true risks that we're running in powerful ways.

1018
01:28:32.217 --> 01:28:32.738
Robert, thank you.

1019
01:28:33.038 --> 01:28:33.439
Thank you, Steve.

1020
01:28:33.459 --> 01:28:38.184
Thank you for turning the lights on for so many of us and bringing and simplifying complexity.

1021
01:28:38.525 --> 01:28:41.388
It's also complex because there's so much rhetoric and propaganda and stuff.

1022
01:28:41.408 --> 01:28:49.017
So it's nice to sit with lots of different people that have lots of different perspectives and have the wealth of experience that you have and have it laid out to me that I can really comprehend.

1023
01:28:49.077 --> 01:28:49.358
So...

1024
01:28:50.661 --> 01:28:52.882
Hopefully we avoid this escalation.

1025
01:28:53.142 --> 01:29:01.344
I believe this is how, if we're going to avoid it, I'm an optimist, and that's why I'm excited to be on your show.

1026
01:29:01.844 --> 01:29:07.386
Not because I want to see the doom loop, but because I want to see us come to a better world.

1027
01:29:07.406 --> 01:29:08.906
I tell you, I'm glad the White House reached out.

1028
01:29:09.507 --> 01:29:10.227
Thank you, Robert.

1029
01:29:10.267 --> 01:29:11.587
You're done.

1030
01:29:12.227 --> 01:29:12.948
You tried.

1031
01:29:12.988 --> 01:29:13.688
You're doing good.