Col. Larry Wilkerson: Trump Intelligence Pick Joe Kent QUITS - Israel Goes Nuclear Loses EVERYTHING

Youth Mental Health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions.

We must strengthen after-school programs.

We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools.

We must work with mental health professionals to support children.

And we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy.

Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions

at EmpowerOurFutureCoalition.com slash Solutions.

Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.

The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports.

Right now, the NBA is heating up,

March Manus is here, and MLB is almost back.

Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight,

a new moment you've got to see for yourself.

That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app.

For me, it's about staying connected to my sports.

I can follow the teams I care about,

get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place.

Dallow the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.

Hi everybody, today's Tuesday, March 17th,

2026, and our dear friend, our brother,

our current workers, and he's here with us.

Welcome back there.

Good to be with you.

Name a happy St. Patrick's Day.

Yeah, happy.

Let me start with the breaking news about Joe Kent,

Director of National Counter-Turism Center.

He resigned in protest against the imposed war on Iran,

and he said that I cannot in good conscious support

the ongoing war in Iran.

Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,

and it's clear that we started the war due to pressure from Israel,

and it's powerful American lobby.

And we had Donald Trump responding and talking about what has happened,

and how he feels about the resignation of Joe Kent.

Here is what he said.

Today, your Director of National Counter-Turism, Joe Kent,

he just resigned today.

He said he can't support your conflict with Iran.

What's your reaction to that?

And did you?

Well, I read his statement.

I always thought he was a nice guy,

but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.

I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy.

But when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out,

because he said that Iran was not a threat.

Iran was a threat every country.

It realized what a threat Iran was.

The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it.

And many people, many of the greatest military scholars,

are saying for years that President should have taken out Iran

because they wanted a nuclear weapon.

They were, if we didn't do the attack,

or if I'll go a step further,

if I didn't terminate the Iran nuclear deal,

given to us one of the worst deals ever made by Barack Hussein and Obama,

remember when they sent Boeing 757s over there?

Loaded with cash.

Do you have the letter in front of you?

Do you have Joe Kancelletter in front of you?

Yeah.

Read about the third paragraph from the bottom.

It's one about his wife.

Let me just find it here.

Yeah, he's talking about his wife was lost in Syria and was killed in Syria.

Yeah.

And that's why he hates the war.

And that's why he feels this way about the war,

this endless wars in the Middle East.

And you got to know Joe Kancelletter before.

Joe Kancelletter was really a MAGA staple.

He was a MAGA beast.

And for him to do this,

kind of like Charlie Kirk, having his epiphany about Israel,

for him to do this is remarkable because he was an attack dog for MAGA.

And that's why they put him in the position they did.

And Trump's remarks there were just stupid, just stupid.

Everybody knows that Donald Trump and Joe Kancell were pretty close.

He wouldn't have made him head of the counterterrorism center if they weren't.

So this turnaround and that expression of pain caused by the loss of his wife

tells me that Joe Kancelletter had gotten a real epiphany himself about what this war is all about.

And what Syria was all about.

Because that's what he's saying really.

And what everything Trump has done with regard to that region,

and for that matter with regard to Ukraine too,

and Venezuela, and potentially Cuba,

threatened on Greenland, is Donald Trump.

That's Donald Trump.

In other words, he's worse than any of the worst Roman,

Western Roman Empire seizures that we seem to think we know so much about.

Whether it be Caligula or Nero or any of the others that were more or less

on the bottom of the heap, Trump is worse.

And that's what Joe Kancelletter is saying.

Charlie Kirk said it about the connection with Israel.

Now Joe Kancell has said it about Donald Trump.

Do you expect Tulsi Gava doing something?

I would think that we're talking about that this morning.

Who's next?

It's gotta be Tulsi.

She simply has to do something to resurrect her future.

She's not a stupid woman.

She's a smart woman.

She's a good politician.

She had the right feelings about the JCPOA after much study of it.

She knew more about the JCPOA than I did when I walked into Brewer.

I stopped the briefing.

I brought three experts with me.

You know, I treated Parcy.

I brought other people with me, and I said,

ma'am, Congresswoman, we don't need to waste your time.

You know more about it than we do.

All we do, all we're gonna do is culminate this briefing,

get out of your office,

and ask you to be with us for it, rather than again it.

And she said, I will make my decision.

I'm still studying.

So she needs to resurrect herself.

She's got a lot of potential.

She's still young.

But if she stays with this ship till it goes down, she's finished.

The whole agenda, Larry, somehow falling apart.

It's not just because, you know, when you see Europeans are not that much into

getting involved in offensive against Iran,

that shows that something going on, not just in the United States,

outside of the United States.

Because so far, we cannot say that the Europeans were not involved so far.

Since day one, they were trying to help the United States defensively,

and they tried to defend Israel.

But they're not that much, they don't want to be part of this offensive

in the straight of foremost.

They see that's a red line, as I don't know if we can put it this way.

But the whole concept, the whole rhetoric is just falling apart.

And you see who's the establishment, who's not the establishment.

For example, Mike Johnson today came out and totally defending Donald Trump.

And here is what he said, Larry.

On the gang of eight, I got all the briefings.

We all understood there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran

was very close to the enrichment of nuclear capability.

And they were building missiles at a pace that no one in the region could keep up with.

They were far outpacing our allies and friends and us in our defense capability,

because we had personnel, installations, members of the armed services, and civilians in the region.

Iran was building up ballistic missiles at such a rapid pace,

and we knew that their plan was to fire them upon Americans.

The Commander-in-Chief and his administration had a very difficult decision to make.

I don't know where Joe Kent is getting his information,

but he wasn't in those briefings clearly, because the Secretary of State,

the Secretary of War, and everyone, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Kane,

they had exquisite intelligence that we understood that this was a serious moment for us.

Had the President waited, I am personally convinced

that we would have mass casualties of Americans, service members and others,

and our installations would have been dramatically damaged.

And so we had to, the President fell that he had to strike first

to prevent those mass casualties.

That's a summary. I can't tell you the classified part,

but that's a summary that's made public and it's accurate.

Yes, money.

Let me just tell you what he didn't say.

This is what Johnson would have said had he been honest and free with his words.

Maybe at the beginning, maybe in the middle, maybe at the end.

And we are on God's side.

We are on Jesus Christ's side.

And we are going to triumph because it is time for Jesus to come back now.

It is time for Armageddon.

It is time for the end times.

That's what Mike Johnson would have said if he didn't think it would be at that point,

politically bad to say that from the speaker's roster, because that's Mike Johnson.

You know what he did?

Otherwise, it was mostly lies.

There wasn't consensus.

No question in my mind now after exporting it more fully, there wasn't consensus.

And certainly came if he didn't advise against it, he gave enough information

that any commander in chief with half a brain would have said,

maybe I'm not going here and picked up the phone and called BB Netanyahu and told him to cease

and desist because he wouldn't be with him.

Because BB would not have gone, had the president put his foot down and said that to him.

Johnson's lying to his teeth, he's lying to his teeth.

No, he's the way that he's talking.

His point of view is one of the main reasons that the people came out and voted for Donald Trump.

They thought that Donald Trump would be different, but they see that Donald Trump is the same.

And those people like Joe Kent, like Tucker Carlson,

they're disgusted with their own people, if you will, because they got

led down the Primrose path by a lot of people making arguments with which they were sympathetic.

Hell, I'm sympathetic with some of the arguments.

I'm sympathetic with the argument that we don't need to have wars in the Middle East,

stupid wars like Iraq and Syria and Libya and Afghanistan and so forth.

That was what Trump was saying and that's what attracted them to him.

Go back and look at those comments and I wish Johnson would have had

BB Netanyahu up on the right screen while he was saying what he was saying,

where BB says over and over and over again for 20 years,

Iran is going to have a nuclear weapon in a week or two.

Iran is going to have a nuclear weapon next year.

Iran is at 90% enrichment they'll have a nuclear.

How many times did BB say that?

And Johnson was just saying the same thing.

This is all manufactured garbage in order to support a president who is absolutely

reversed himself on his main tenant with regard to national security.

No more stupid wars.

Did you listen to me people?

And especially no more stupid wars in the Middle East.

That's what he said.

Repeatedly.

That's why they voted for him.

Many of them.

That's why they voted.

Now he's losing them.

He's losing them so fast it's like rats jumping off a sinking ship.

And Johnson is going to stay there until the ship goes down.

Because Johnson believes it's the end times.

He believes God is directing this war.

Larry, what does Donald Trump want from Europeans and from NATO allies?

He's when he mentions that they're not helping us.

Here is Donald Trump criticizing Europeans.

And all of the NATO allies agreed with us.

And but they don't want to, you know,

despite the fact that we help them so much.

We have thousands of soldiers in different countries all over the world.

And they don't want to help us.

Which is amazing.

I mean, amazing.

And I didn't do a full court press.

Because I think if I did, they probably would be.

But we don't need help.

You know, that war has been long prosecuted as far as I'm concerned.

Almost from day one, we knocked out many of these things.

We knocked out the Navy essentially in a couple of days.

They don't have a Navy to speak of.

So he knocked out a Navy that don't have to speak of.

He knocked out an Air Force that was so old it couldn't fly.

The only thing they have name, but you know,

the only thing they have is ballistic missiles.

And they have plenty of them.

And, you know, Churchill,

Churchill has always quoted as saying everything that ever was said in the world.

But Churchill said the only thing worse than having allies is not having them.

Donald, you need to go to school.

You need to go to military school.

You need to learn what it means to not have allies.

And he's losing them, rapidly losing them.

And he's losing them because they don't want to do stupid things like he does.

And in one case, at least the Spanish leader,

he's losing them because the guy has a sense of ethics and morality.

And oh, by the way, did you know two more countries joined the case against Israel in the court?

Two more countries.

I think before we're through with this,

we're going to have anywhere from 30 to 40 countries

signing up the South Africa's application to the court

for prosecuting Bibi Netanyahu.

And you've got more countries each time that if he enters that country,

he gets arrested immediately.

Do you feel that Joe,

you know, knows, I'm talking about the, you know, the Joe can't.

Is he, does he know something that we don't know in terms of the casualties

or in terms of what has happened so far that we,

because somehow when he criticizes in what has happened in Syria,

it shows that he's concerned about American lives as well.

And it's not just about, and what is the Trump administration, you know,

putting out, they're putting out the casualty six, seven, but

there is an interview recently.

It was today on press TV, a senior Iranian intelligence official.

He's speaking to the press TV, saying that the United States suffered

over 30 to 100 casualties.

And staggering equipment losses in the first week of the war.

And you know, the two, the two side doesn't come together.

You know, the two picture doesn't match.

And that's, many of us, is that possible that Donald Trump is hiding something?

Well, I know he's hiding casualties.

I don't know if he knows he's hiding casualties because people are afraid to tell him the truth,

especially if it's an adverse truth.

They don't want to tell him.

And the military is no exception to that.

They won't tell him either.

And let's just back up a minute and say no matter where you look in America's history,

even go all the way back to George Washington Revolutionary War.

Less so there because Washington was probably one of the most upright military commanders we've ever had.

And ethical too.

America's lied about its casualties and wars.

We lied in Korea.

We lied in Vietnam.

We lied in World War II.

We lied in World War I.

Wilson was an inveterate liar.

We don't ever tell the American people the cost of our decisions to go to war in the full

until well after the war is over.

Take the German counteroffensive in the Ardenne where we lost 78,000 in less than four weeks.

78,000.

That's more casualties than General MacArthur took in the entire war in the Pacific and the

South with Pacific theater in which he was in charge.

So and we didn't tell anybody.

We didn't tell the American people that it didn't flow back immediately.

So yeah, there's a lot going on.

But I don't know if Trump is doing it himself intentionally or he's just not very well informed.

I don't know what the total count is, but no, it's well over 100.

I don't know that Iran's figures are anywhere near Accord either.

There's just no way to verify it because there's such a lockdown.

On real information.

Starting with the master lockered down.

Bebe Netanyahu, for example, I think the casualties in Israel are fairly large.

But he's not reporting anything.

But and the newspapers, even Haaretz, reporting something like all of

Israeli was killed today walking across the street or Israeli was wounded.

But he wasn't wounded badly.

She wasn't wounded badly.

Whether a schoolgirl was hit with a flying piece of fragment off a drone that ironed

dome had shot down.

That's the way they couched their casualties.

But I know that they have more casualties than that.

I know that for example, 25 to 30 percent of the 90 plus thousand call up of the reserves

when they all didn't get called up because they didn't want to go to Lebanon.

So lies are just throughout this thing.

And they've been there from the start.

We lied about the diplomacy.

We've lied about the war.

We've lied about the casualties.

We're lying about Iran's capacity to withstand us.

Just the President saying we destroyed their navy.

What navy?

What boats did you destroyed?

A few little boats?

Little boats?

Yeah, you destroyed a few little boats.

Okay, you torpedoed one against international law.

It was in international waters coming back from an exercise with India.

You torpedoed it.

Oh, that was another war crime to go up to our credit.

I don't know how to parse this administration with regard to truth.

They do not tell the truth.

They have made a living online.

So it's extremely difficult to say what's happening.

We know, for example, that the hospital in Longstown, Germany,

because we have people there, we know that the hospital has,

and the press has even carried some of this.

It's told pregnant women to go away.

It's told civilians in general to go away.

It normally serves the community there.

It has a really fairly substantial throughput capacity for the central part of Europe

in order to send casualties back to America or wherever they need to go for treatment.

We know that they've shut down civilian care,

and we know that casualties are coming into Longstown.

But we don't know how many yet, and we don't have

someone standing there counting them coming in.

But we know they're coming in.

And we know, for example, that Iran very carefully,

pains takingly even, took out four to five of the most important radar in

ancillary countries.

And when they took out those radars, they created casualties.

These are in some 200 to 300 million dollar radars.

One of them, as I understand it, was a half a billion dollars, 500 million dollars.

They took them all out, with drones and missiles,

and blinded us, blinded us in that capacity for that time.

And as I said, there were casualties at each of those sites when they took them out.

We know that the embassy in Baghdad has been hit inside the green zone.

But we don't know the casualties, Rubio's hiding that.

So, how will you ever know what the real casualty count is?

But we do know that significant casualties have already been taken, both civilian and military.

Linsagram says that Europe's refusal to provide the United States with assistance

in the war with Iran will have broad and deep consequences

because Donald Trump is angrier than ever.

What Larry, let me ask, because you didn't have the time to answer the question with that clip.

What do they want from Europe?

What is Europe capable of that the United States cannot do it in the straighter for most, for example?

Well, I don't think the United States can do it in the straighter for most.

I really don't.

So, what they're looking for is the first of all, the military is looking for,

is the kind of help we anticipated that interoperability with NATO forces would provide.

And a case in point, we don't have a real fleet of minesweepers.

We have some ships that have been called minesweepers because they were in the LCS class,

you know, the one Lockheed sent off the ways one day, the first one they built and they've broken

half. So, this is a really lousy class of ships, if you will, in most sailors eyes.

But we converted them. We didn't want to mess up that we spent hundreds of millions of dollars

on ships that didn't work and had no utility. So, we converted them into minesweepers in some cases.

Now, it's a real problem. Some of them have a metallic hull rather than a laminated plastic hull.

So, they're not very good as minesweepers. They detect mines. They attract mines if they have

metal hulls. All to say that we depend on other countries in NATO who do have minesweepers,

who practice it all the time and are very good at it. And that was supposed to be a part of the alliance.

If we went to war under Article 5, if we went to war, they would provide the minesweeping,

same with other specialty areas. That's what we're looking for. We're looking for those

specialty areas that NATO countries have in excess of what we have, especially minesweeping,

to come to the Gulf and help us. And they don't want to do that. And I don't blame them on

bit. The way Trump has treated Europe up to this point, if I were a European leader, I would look

back at Trump and say, you son of a bitch, would you like me to play the tape you had of your

vice president over here with the Munich Security Covers? Would you like me to play the tape of

Marco Rubio talking about it? Would you like me to play a tape of you talking about us?

Because you're the person who started to split. Now, it was over Ukraine, principally,

but there are other issues too. Trump made some egregious statements about what NATO had to offer

to America's defense. And they didn't forget them. And they've got some real reasons for not

not really being cooperative. You've got the Spanish leader who's doing it, I think, for moral

and ethical purposes. And I applaud him. He has moral courage. But you've got other leaders doing

it because they got their own problems. They have significant problems. Look at what they just

did in the EU. They passed a law about the time of the special military operation starting

almost five years ago. They passed a law that they would never buy again Arctic LNG from Russia.

It's really sweet the deal they have with Russia. It goes in European bottoms down to Bremmerhaven,

or Bremmerhaven, or Lahava, or one of the other ports. And they take everything in their own

bottoms. They put their own ships in there. All Russia does is top them off. Russia gets the money

in everything in scope of setting. And the Europeans have LNG out the yin-a. What did they just do?

They just bought all of Russia's Arctic LNG. And it's going to be shipped down to Europe now.

And what did they say when someone said in the press, I was watching it, I forget who the leader

was, why did you do that? You said you were going to not do that anymore. You're punishing Russia.

Well, it doesn't start till January 27. Do we think they're going to stop in January 27?

Hell no, they're not, because they've got to have that LNG. We're not going to supplement that LNG

to the point where they can get off Russia. And they're going to have to open the pipelines back up to

name eventually. So Russia's not happy with the way the United States is waging this conflict

in Iran. Not happy at all. Okay, so you've got to deal with Russia. You've got to deal with them

in the future, or you are going to be shit out of luck, pardon my French, with regard to your economies.

You're already staggering from what we did to Nord Stream. What we did to Nord Stream,

you're already being punished for that. Europe's got to figure itself out.

It's got to sort itself out. And one of the sorting things it has to do is it can't trust

wrong, wrong. Any more than Putin can, any more than anyone in Iran can, any more than anyone

in the world can. That's the reality of the United States of America today. No one can trust us.

Larry Iranian parliament speaker,

Alibov, he said that the straight-up for most situation won't return to its pre-war status.

And they really want to change the whole game in the Middle East.

It seems that the straight-up for most is bringing some sort of leverage that they

didn't want it before. They didn't want to go that far before because there was no war.

There was nothing happening. That's why they didn't try to do anything in the straight-up for most.

Right now, the situation has totally changed after the assassination of the supreme leader of Iran.

And they feel that the threat is on the doorstep. That's why they have to do something about it.

And how do you see Iran going forward managing the straight-up for most?

I've been here and done that. I was one of the planners out at U.S. Pacific Command when we

implemented Operation Ernest Will, where we reflagged Kuwaiti tankers and escorted them through this

very water, including the very narrow and the north channel and the south channel of the very

passageway which big tankers go through is only a couple of miles wide, north and south. The north

route, as I recall, is very close to the Iranian shore. The south route is further, but it's still

interdictable. And we had a significant problem then. And then we had our allies throwing in their

efforts. And we had a fairly substantial capability to sweep for minds ourselves, especially helicopter

dragged nets and such. That was extremely difficult. Brimerton, Bridgerton was the name of the

M.V., Big M.V., motor vehicle, civilian ship that hit a mine immediately. The skipper was really

angry with us because he did a mine. And all of a sudden, everything changed in the world in terms

of insurers and shippers. No one wanted to ship. No one wanted to insure. Rates went off the chart.

We persevered. Samuel B. Roberts, a U.S. Navy warship hit a mine. Almost sunk her. She had to

limp back to Norfolk as I recall. Took her full. She had to go at four knots across the Atlantic.

We had another ship hit by Saddam Hussein, who fired exquisite missiles at it and hit it.

And then, of course, we had the incident that caused Khomeini to say, I'm throwing my towel in.

I can fight Iraq. I can beat Iraq, but I can't fight Iraq back by the United States.

And that was occasion when Ben Sins, a new Aegis cruiser, shot down in Iranian Airbus and killed

299 Iranian civilians. That's when Khomeini said that and threw in the towel and accepted the UN

resolution that stopped that eight-year brutal war. Very different today. Difficult then.

Very difficult then. Cost is what I just described. We wound up sinking in Iranian destroyer,

and we're going to put a bomb down the second destroyer's stack in Ronald Reagan,

the president at the time, called us off because he thought we'd done enough damage.

In that particular instance, we succeeded in making the strait safe for ships to go through,

but it cost us. And Iran did not have anywhere near the capability it does today.

And that capability is not their Navy. It's not their Air Force. It's their ballistic missiles and

drones. And they can make havoc with that little narrow strip of water. They can make havoc with

the entire Persian Gulf, if they want to, including the forbidden aisle, as the Iranian sometimes call it,

cargo or carc up there, about one-third the size of Manhattan. And a place you probably know this,

but this has been there for a long time. Saddam Hussein tried to attack it. UAE tried to attack it.

They were unsuccessful. You can put 10 tankers in there at the same time, refuel them all at the same

time. It's a wonderful facility for the Iranians. The water is very deep there, which it isn't

throughout the rest of the Persian Gulf. So that's a prime facility. If we try to take that with

Marines or whatever, which is what I'm hearing, they were going to land Marines on there and try to

take it. I pity those Marines. I pity that whole complex there because it'll be probably

destroyed in many ways, which has been impossible for so long with so many antagonists. We're going

to come down and destroy it. The poet, I forget his name now. I forget it, but he calls it something

like the orphan pearl of the Gulf in Persian. I think it translates that way. And it is an

extraordinary place when you think about the rest of the Gulf in Iran's capacity to move oil

and such. And for that matter, other people like India and China who received that oil.

That all stops. West Texas Intermediate goes to $200. It's already over $100, I'm told.

Brent Crude does the same thing and we have shippers who want ship. We have insurers that want

insurer and we're back at the Arab Arms embargo. You may recall from way back there you were pretty

young and I couldn't even drive from Fort Monroe, Virginia to Washington DC because there was no

fuel, no gas. We're back to that on an extended basis if we're not careful. And Trump has already

depleted the strategic petroleum reserve. He's now drawing it down even further to try and reduce

oil prices. It didn't go to work. And we're going to be in a, we're going to be in deep

kimchi as the Koreans would say. And so is the globe. If we let this go on and Iran is successful

in keeping those countries, it does not want to get through this straight from doing so.

And let's those countries who it wants to be able, like those servicing China, to get through.

And they can do that. Question is, can we alone, can we alone stop that? We can probably make it

more difficult to stop the flow, but we're going to take significant casualties in doing so.

And back to your question, had the Europeans pitched in their mind-sweeping capability and other

assets like that, it wouldn't been quite so bad, but they're not going to.

We know that the aircraft carrier, Abraham Lincoln, is far away from the Iranian coast.

Very far now. They've moved another 300 miles.

And not just that, we had, you know, the general R4 is getting back to Greece.

And while all of this happening, you see Donald Trump forcing Europeans to come in this

street. You know, it shows that the war is not going the way that Donald Trump wants it to be.

And they've seen the accuracy of these missiles. They've seen the point

accuracy of these missiles, like the one that hit the facility in Bahrain,

right on top of it. And they've seen the capacity of this class, and they know

there are a couple of classes of missiles left, like the Mach 3, Mach 4,

even Mach 5 missiles, the hypervelocity missiles that you cannot hit with anything.

And they are very fearful of losing a carrier. You talk about putting Donald Trump on his back foot

and making sure that he gets impeached. Take down an American carrier.

Conversely though, and the Russians have to be thinking about this because I've been impressed

with their ability to think this way. We take a carrier out. 5,000 Americans did in one fell swoop.

Will that make the American people change their mind about this war? Because right now the American

people, three quarters of the American people do not support this war. And it's growing every day,

percentage point or so every week. That might swing the American people in a different direction.

So I would be very, very careful about doing that too if I were wrong. But can they do it? You bet.

How is the situation with the Israeli defense system, Larry? And we know that they're getting from

two sides, from Iran and from Hezbollah. And sometimes roughly coordinated at the same time.

200 Hezbollah missiles come in and, you know,

equivalent number, not quite as many, but more devastating Iranian missiles come in.

It's bad. It's bad.

And you see in the mainstream, in the Israeli media, they're mostly talking about,

so what is the outcome of this war? What is the benefit of the continuation of this war?

And they're asking this question, which wasn't the case before.

Right. They weren't dying. They weren't bleeding. They weren't scared to death.

I mean, they're living their lives in underground shelters.

Youth mental health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions.

We must strengthen after-school programs. We must make digital literacy tools

available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children,

and we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy.

Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at EmpowerOurFutureCoalition.com

slash Solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.

The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA is heating up,

March Bandis is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight,

a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app.

For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about,

get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place.

Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.

Donald Trump is trying to bring Syria in, you know,

the Jolani and Al Jolani and his gang to go against, you know, to going in Reader's Report,

that the United States encourages Syrian action against Hezbollah.

Damascus is hesitant, you know. But you bet. They see what happens to the Kurds when they throw

there a lot in with the Empire. The idea that someone like Jolani or the Kurds for that matter,

any one of the groups of Kurds would throw in now, given the fact that they're going to have

Iran in front of them and Erdogan behind them? I don't think so. I don't think so.

And Erdogan's not going to watch something like that happening and not take action.

I know he's been all mouth up to this point, but I think the Kurds refusing, they just refuse

to do what Trump wanted them to do. And I can only sympathize and empathize with them because

they would have had the Iranians in front of them with those new attack helicopters at the Russian

system, and they would have had Erdogan behind them. Erdogan would love to have an opportunity

to crush the Kurds in any of their components. Syrian Kurds, Iranian Kurds, or Iraqi Kurds,

although he gets along pretty well with Sulmania and Kirkuk and Mosul and places like that now,

because they have a pretty good deal with oil and everything else. And so Turkey doesn't mind

the Kurds in northern Iraq much, nor did the Kurds apparently mind Turkey much anyway. And Turkey

used to send soldiers into that region periodically all during the year and kill people, or capture

people and take them back in torturing. And the Kurds sort of did the same thing back to Turkey

across the border there. But they've been pretty peaceful because they're both more or less

content with their relationship they have now. But not true with the Iranian and the Syrian Kurds.

The reality of this Syrian, the so-called HTS, the so-called Syrian President is the head of HTS.

We know that. And what is important, I think, for us to take into account, is that these guys didn't

fight the government, didn't fight the army, because the army collapsed without fighting the

capture of the Damascus. I don't know how capable or day to fight on the ground against

Ezbala. The Ezbala fighters, we know them, you know, they have been training and fighting for such

a long time. And these people, we don't know that much about the history or the training system of

these people in the West. I agree with you. There are none known factor in that regard, in that

specific regard. Otherwise, I think they're pretty well known. There are Qaeda, ISIS, and other

types. And one wonders if they really have had an epiphany and changed their mind, which leaves

me to say that you might get a development, you really rue the day in creating. If you pitched

them as Ezbala in the flank as it were, while Israel was taking them on in the front, and all of a

sudden they decided to join the Ezbala against you. Because that, to me, would be a very logical

development, very logical. I mean, after all, it's Muslims on one side and Jews on the other.

And though there are modus for Vindy that have developed in that regard, they don't necessarily

stand up when you're killing Muslims in front of them. I don't care, Shia, Sunni, whatever.

I mean, the death of Ali Komenay has more or less demonstrated. You can get unity in the

Islamic world across sex if you do something as heinous as that.

Donald Trump feels that he can put an end to the conflict as soon as he decides to do.

And it's not the case when it comes to the Iranian government. They say that

they feel that they have the leverage with the freedom for most of the war, with the continuation

of the war. And here is what Donald Trump said about his time frame to open up the freedom for most.

President, for when partiships can safely go through the streets?

It won't be, I don't believe too long. We're not going to hell out of the coast. It's basically

the coast and the water. And it won't be too long. And the Middle Eastern states, including

Israel, by the way, who has been terrific, the Middle Eastern states have been helping us a lot.

That last statement was a lot. They are not helping us a lot. There are one or two of them like

that vassal-quizzling Jordan that are helping us. But even there, I'm told, I don't know this for a

fact, but I'm told fairly reliable source that the blow against the radar in Jordan was pretty

significant and impressed a lot of people. Depressed them maybe is a better word. So they're thinking

twice and thrice about doing anything. I don't think they've hit anything in Egypt yet. At

least I haven't heard anything. An Egypt's kind of keeping its powder dry. But that was a lie.

And then the other aspect of what he conveyed there is that we're in control. We're devastating

Iran and it won't be very long before the streets open and everything will be flowing. It's just bullshit.

Trump bullshit. Now, whether he's making it up out of whole claw, which he has a want to do,

or he's being advised that way, is undeterminable by me at least at this point. I can't imagine

anyone with any competence is telling him he ought to be saying that. So I have to believe he's

doing what Trump normally does. He's pulling it out of his rear end.

You know, Larry, what's dangerous about Donald Trump is that somehow when you listen to him,

it seems that the guy is totally disconnected with the reality. And he's trying to make things up,

you know, I don't know. He's receiving false information. And when it comes to the AI, he says

all these people on streets in Iran or AI, they have produced AI pictures. You have to be totally

disconnected with reality to argue that. He is very reminiscent in general, not specifics,

but general of Biden towards the end of his last year, almost as if he's demented.

Now, he has moments like in these press conferences where he's a little bit more in control of himself,

both physically his body and his mouth than he is other times. I've seen him going to the plane

and making comments coming from the plane or the helicopter making comments where I wonder if

somebody needs the grabbing because he's going to collapse. He's going to fall over and die right

there on the tarmac or on the grass because he looks so disheveled and so uncontrolled and not

really physically fit at all. I don't know how they're getting pumped up for these things like

these press conferences where he seems to be able to handle himself, although sometimes there,

as you've probably noticed, he looks like he's, you know, a baby or a puking in his own lap.

I'm told you don't want to be standing too close to him because it's putrid around him.

I don't say that, you know, in a way that personally deride him, I'm just saying that I'm not sure

he's in control of all these facilities all the time, especially his mental facilities.

But when he does gear it up like for press conference or something like that or he's meeting

somebody important, he can utter things that are still utterly ridiculous. And it's just part of

his modus operandi. That's who he is. He's a grifter. He lies for a living. He cheats for a living.

He's deceitful for a living. That's what he is. It takes me back to all those times I went to

New York between his first campaign and this and this presidency. I'd ride in taxis.

You always find out about people from taxi drivers. And in New York, it's especially that way because

New York has a lot of foreigners driving taxis, foreigners looking for their citizenship or a

green card or something. Yes, but not like Washington DC. I have never ridden in a taxi in Washington

DC, in Washington DC. That wasn't driven by Somali, a Pakistani, an Indian, or some other group.

And lots of times they have PhDs in their own country and they can talk to you endlessly.

In New York, you get New Yorkers much of the time. And I talked to them about Donald Trump. They hated

his guts. They had no kind words for him. They said he was a swindler. They said he was a con man.

Couple of them, I was in route to Great Neck and this very, very vocal taxi driver told me he was a

mafiosa. And then he knew he was a mafiosa because his brother was and his brother had told him

about Donald Trump meeting with members of the mafia. So Donald Trump is hated by New Yorkers who

count. New Yorkers who are at that level where the work gets done in New York City. They hate his

guts. So I knew immediately from just that informal conversation on many trips to New York City

that he was not the kind of person he wanted to be present in the United States. And I've just had

that ramified 100,000 times again and again by his being president. He's a grifter. He's a mafiosa.

He's a gangster. That's who is our president, Neema. You don't have too far to go to realize that

because your man, I think, preceding Lula was too, is too. He's a capitalist gangster maybe.

But so is Trump a capitalist gangster. He's a predatory capitalist par excellence. He just

specializes in real estate instead of banking. That's who is our president. Americans need to wake up.

Hi, this is Farnoosh Tarrabi from So Money with Farnoosh Tarrabi. And today I want to talk to you

about Boost Mobile. Quick money tip. Stop paying a carrier tax. If your phone bill feels trapped

in a pricey plan, this is your sign to unlock savings. Boost Mobile helps you reset your spending

with the $25 unlimited forever plan. You can bring your own phone, pay $25 and get unlimited

wireless forever. And that simple switch can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's money

you could put towards paying down debt, investing or something that actually brings you joy.

Though savings are based on average annual single line payment of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile

customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026.

For full offer details, visit boostmobile.com.

Youth Mental Health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions.

We must strengthen after-school programs. We must make digital literacy tools available

in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children.

And we must empower mentors, educators and parents to keep kids happy.

Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at EmpowerOurFutureCoalition.com

Solutions paid for by the Coalition to Empower OurFuture.

Very considering the war in Ukraine, the economic war in China since 2010

and with the new tire of war during the Trump administration. And coming to the new war

between Iran and the United States, the war on Russia, China and finally on Iran.

Here comes the concept of what is happening to this world. There is a new article in

Financial Times. The title is the era of the US dominance in economic warfare is over.

And this article argues that Iran's actions in this rate of war most show the reality of

multipolar economic warfare. For decades, the United States dominated sanctions and used

financial pressure as a strategic weapon. Now, other powers, including Iran and China,

can use similar tools in response to escalation. Is this picture accurate in your opinion?

I think it is and I think it's just going to worsen with regard to us, the American Empower.

I think you see a composite example of this and the fact that, well, let me ask you a question.

If you were saying what is the most important country in the world today from an economic

and a security perspective to the Empower, what country would you name?

I would say just one. Just one. It would be Russia.

Okay, I'd say China. All right, I'd say China because China is the one becoming a replacement for us.

All to say, whom did he just postpone or even cancel a meeting with?

The leader of that country. And why? The reason is he's at war. That's what he said.

Does that tell you something? You're at war with a country that presents no threat to the United

States of America at all. Because of that war, cancelling a meeting with the man who means

everything to the security of America. You don't need to say anything other than that.

It's ridiculous. It's an evaluation of the situation in the world that makes you want

to puke. It means our president has no idea what is going on. Now, the way you should answer that,

Neema, if you're a geopolitical geostrategic genius, as you should say, no, you don't understand

the people behind Donald Trump. Maybe not Donald Trump. The people behind him who are directing Donald

Trump. Realize what you just said. And they're using Iran and the war they're with to try to get

a China to try and stop the most dangerous base road initiative China has going.

The one running through Iran up the Persian Gulf and into the Caucasus.

So this is the game. This is the great game back in action with new players. The most

problem of which is the United States now making war on Iran not to make war on Iran,

but to make war on China. I'll buy that, but I don't buy the fact that this administration has the

sense to know that. Iran just has the disadvantage of being in the way. We're after China, really.

I would buy that. If Donald Trump came out and told the American people that,

I would buy that. I wouldn't necessarily buy the answer that going to war in Iran was

the way to stop that. But I do understand that geostrategic purpose of taking on China,

if you believe they are antagonistic to your interests to the point you can't deal with them.

See, there's where I differ. There's where George A. SW Bush differed. There's where even George

W. Bush differed. They thought better to deal with China in the economic sphere,

compete with China in that sphere than to go to war. That's not what Biden believed,

and that's not what Trump believes. I don't think. But I know the people behind him don't

believe that. They think war with China is inevitable, best to take them on indirectly.

And the first theater that they've agreed on was Russia and Ukraine. That didn't work too well,

so now they've shifted down to Iran. The active theater, though, is much bigger because they're in

Azerbaijan, they're in Armenia, they're in Georgia, they're in all of the peripheral Russian countries

that they think will give Russia a hard time trying to foment rebellion, trying to foment new policies.

They're in Georgia big time and to bleasy. But Iran is the active theater now, the Southern

flank, if you will, of China's base road initiative. They're trying to stop China.

That makes sense. It doesn't make sense the way we're dealing with it.

There is something deep happening in the United States, even with those,

during the war with Ukraine, we've learned from, for example, Scott Riddler was talking about

that there is no real Russian analyst in the United States. But in my opinion,

when I saw what was happening, what was happening with the conflict with Iran and now the war against

Iran, even with those people who are partly Iranian, Iranian Americans who, you know, I don't want

to name because they're not right now to defend themselves. They don't know Iran, Larry.

You know how, you know how I saw that most vividly? Are you familiar with

Kajero Semenani? He's a billionaire, Iranian. He owns about, I'm totally owned somewhere close

to 95 percent of the nuclear business west of the Mississippi, mostly nuclear waste and things

like that, but he's a multi billionaire, lives in Salt Lake City. I met with him at a time when

Treetoparcy and I were trying to convince the Iranian community in America that we knew the most

about Kajero being one of them to help us get the JCPOA through. And I learned in that time with

Treetop, especially going up and down Orange County in California and other places where Iranian

Americans lived who had lots and lots of money. I learned that there was a very, very wide array

of opinions and views. They did not most of them did not want a war, but they wanted the regime

gone. And they were willing to do just about anything short of war to get rid of the regime, to

include some of them backing them, Moujidina Kakh, the MEK, to include also backing other dissident

Iranian groups with money and so forth. Kajero, for example, was kind of somewhere in the middle

because he had a general license with OFAC Treasury to send a whole ship full of humanitarian

supplies, food, and everything else to Iran once a year. And they approved that. And he would ship,

I think it landed in Chabahar or Bonderbos somewhere like that, all floated, and you know,

Iranians got whatever Iranians needed. They got off that ship and it included a whole array of

medical supplies that Iran had difficulty getting through sanctions and that sort of stuff. So

he was doing that sort of thing, but even he was kind of a dual mind about who he would support

and what he would support in order to overthrow the regime. Well, all of that to say what I found

I think for my own knowledge was that none of them had any idea about what they were saying

in real terms. They were so divorced from the Iran that they had left usually around 77, 78,

79, and the Iran now, especially the Iran that had evolved out of the long bitter war with Iraq

and was now in existence. They simply didn't understand it. They went back to the days of the

Shah or just after them. So I don't know what to, I don't know what to say about. I accept that I

would say don't take advice from any of those people. Don't take advice from any of them.

Except the few that we did meet some of who were all for the Iranian people and said essentially

if democracy or a better form of government in terms of the people is to come to the Iranian

people, they themselves need to achieve it. Not outsiders, not outsiders. There were quite a few of them

that felt that way. Dennis, doctors and others, wealthy Iranian Americans who felt that way.

And incidentally they gave the most money to treat them.

Larry, comparing to Iran during the Iran Iraq war, the population today in 2026 is twice the

population that it was during the Iran Iraq war. The food production today in Iran is eight times

they produce during that. They produce in more food, which is one reason why they run out of water.

But when it comes to the water, Larry, they're less than almost 2% they're dependent on the

desalination plants. Yeah, I knew that wasn't a big blow. But the thing I'm hearing from climate

people, these are people who are totally neutral in terms of who's running what and so forth.

What I'm hearing from the climate people is that because of the way they do agriculture,

they had these incredible reservoirs of water. They're not quite like our aquifers, but they are

roughly the same in terms of providing water from deep underground. Because of their methods of

agriculture, they have really drained those in the last 30 years. And they're looking at the

potential for climate to really give them a blow if it's not already giving them a blow.

And this all has to do with, you know, the same thing we're doing in our country, just

draining in order to raise crops, you know. But after all, Larry, what I wanted to say that when

I got back to Iran after more than 12 years, I saw a country economically more powerful.

And the cities have totally transformed. The cities were much more beautiful in everything.

Which is why this bombing is such a shame. Yeah, yeah, historical sites,

thousand year plus old historical sites, we're just bombing them.

And many people don't understand that Iran was invaded. First World War and Second World War

was invaded by foreign countries. And right now, I think many of, I criticize many people who

are arguing that Iran is weaker than before, that 10 years ago, 12 years, 20 years ago,

Iran is much in a much stronger, when I got back, I really perceived that Iran in a much stronger

position right now. That's why it was so comfortable, you know, to continue the war. This

confidence doesn't come from, you know, weakness. It's come from, you know, how they're confident

about their capabilities. I agree. And look at what we've done. We were talking about this

yesterday to two people that I used to teach with. One's a geologist and one's a historian.

And our point that we all agreed on was what we have done in essence is we have made a country

that, as you said, was growing more and more powerful in terms of its cohesiveness and its people

every day arrive at that point even earlier than they would have. And we're going to regret that

dearly because they're going to fight us to the death.

And that's the wrong way we should have approached it. You know, another person who's an

anthropologist essentially said, look, I've been in and out of Iran for 30 years and I will tell

you right now the nascent movements among the Iranian people for a better government were going

to triumph. They're going to triumph. All you had to do was let them alone nurture them in any way

you could that was not CIA oriented, Mossad oriented, you know, what do you mean by nurture? Well,

I mean, if they ask for help with media with newspapers or something like that, you offer them help.

If they ask for help with farming, you offer them help. If they ask for emergency aid because

of an earthquake like they had in BAM in 2003, you offer them help. But you don't act like you

want to change their regime. You let them do that. I think that's right. I think that's right.

That's not the way you approach other countries. Iran or any other country, you know.

Larry, before wrapping up, we know that the air defense system is not working the way it was working

when the war started and Israel is somehow in the desperate situation. And many people would

argue that Israel may go, you know, after new, they may use nuclear bombs against Iran. They may go

nuclear. And here is what Donald Trump said about Israel using nukes.

izers David Sachs said the other week that the US should quote declare victory and get out of the

Iran war. He also warned that if the conflict escalates, Israel may contemplate the use of a

nuclear weapon. Has he shared that assessment with you? Yes. And Israel wouldn't do that.

Israel would never you do that. And yeah, there's no, there's a theory. You've pounded them to

hell and you can just leave now and it'll take 10 years for them to build back not nearly what they

have right now. And I guess that's another theory. But we want to have it ended so that another

president doesn't have, look, for 47 years, no president was willing to do what I'm doing. And they

should have done it a long time ago. It would have been a lot easier. There's no president that wanted

to do it. This is the same guy who said that you're not going to get a new war in the Middle East

with me. And he's right in the middle of a new war with Iran. And he says Israel is not going to,

I think we have to go. Nobody would, you know, believe what Donald Trump is talking about.

You know what I would have said to him right there if I were in his face at the time he was saying

that. I already said, why do you think, Mr. President, 47 years of presidents didn't do it?

Have you given that any thought? You're implying they were cowards. You're implying they didn't

know what they were doing, whereas you do. You're implying that you're the smart person. And all

those presidents over those 47 years, and I'll take you all the way back to Dwight Eisenhower,

if you'd like, you're implying that they were stupid or cowards or both. You want me to believe

that you now are smart in what you're doing. Tell me, why do you think they didn't do it? He'd

be speechless. No, he'd make up a bunch of lies. But that's how stupid what he just said is.

Now, you could say, as you were just implying, you were smarter, Mr. President,

when you were running for president, because you said this, and let me quote you,

and you could quote him 20 or 30 times. No more wars in the Middle East, no more this, no more

that in the Middle East. How'd you change your mind, Mr. President? Why'd you change your mind?

May I suggest the reason you changed your mind was the persuasiveness of that little shit head

known as BB Netanyahu, because he had so much money in your callfers, and because he knows

lots about you because of Epstein. Now, the guy can't even lie well anymore. I mean, he never

could lie really well at all, but he's just egregiously that way now. It's almost painful to hear him.

Larry, have you ever talked about Israel using nuclear bombs against Iran, and what would be the

reaction? What would be the outcome of that for Israel? I think we've got a holy new scenario now,

Nema, actually. Some of us have been giving some really heavy thought to this.

One bomb would not really do a lot. So, if you were militarily advising Netanyahu,

and he has some military advisors like this, you would say multiple weapons. You wouldn't just use

one. One would not really, in that big country, unless you were able to convince yourself to drop

it on to Iran or something like that, one hopes and praise that wouldn't happen, and that would be a

war crime of just unimaginable proportions. It would probably sealed Netanyahu's doom before the court,

if not elsewhere too. So, if you were going to use them in a militarily effective way, you would

use more than one. You perhaps use a dozen or more, and you'd use them in key areas where you knew

that the effect would be not so damning of you in terms of the press that occurred afterwards.

And you knew you'd be bringing yourself some kind of military advantage or achievement,

particularly knocking out ballistic missile sites or something like that.

So, our conclusion was if you had good military advice, you would not just upload a few as they

were doing in 1973 to drop on the Egyptian Third Army and the Russians and us Soviets at the time,

and us got really concerned and weighed in on it. They would do it in a much more extensive way,

and we wouldn't have just one bomb going off. We'd have a dozen or so bombs going on,

and then we asked ourselves, what would that mean? That would really let the Genie out of the

bottle because it would support those in this country, for example, young people who don't know

anything about the Manhattan Project or about Japan or any of the history of these weapons.

Just think of them in technological terms. That would support their theory that we bought

them. We pay for them enormously. We pay for them. Why can't we use them?

So, you would be opening an entire new regime of warfare in our view. You would be saying to the

world, oh, look, see, they were used there. We have horrible aftermaths, maybe, especially if they're

airbursts instead of groundbursts, where you get lots of radiation. Think Chernobyl, for example,

many Chernobles. This would be a horrible development, a horrible development, and yet it makes sense

in that narrower way from a military professional point of view. You wouldn't want to just use one,

and you wouldn't want to use it on a city. You'd want to use them effectively in military terms,

and you'd want to use lots of them. This is a horrible development to have happened.

But I don't put it past BB. I don't put it past BB at all, especially if he thinks things are

getting so dire that he has to deliver a hammer blow in order to change the correlation of forces,

change the whole appearance of victory or defeat. I think I told you how rats had that headline,

the headline said, all Iran has to do is not lose to win. Iran and the United States have to

achieve a Trumpian victory to win. They got to achieve that kind of victory to win. So this is a

bad situation. I think Larry from what I perceive from Iranian officials, they're considering

that scenario as well, and they said that they know how to respond. I don't know what would be that

response. I don't know what do they have in their army, in their arsenal. That's it for missiles.

Class of missiles. The ones that go at mock three or mock four.

And how Israel would survive that sort of attack? That could be, you know,

and the Mona, if they attack the Mona, so it's not just about, you know,

it's totally the case is somehow so complicated if they go that far against Iran.

Nima, I wouldn't be surprised at all that Israel hasn't dispersed its nuclear arsenal

and not told anybody, not us or anybody else, probably very narrow group of Israelis that know

they've done it, but all you would need would be a bomb shelterer to here and there and just

you know, cordon them off, put signs up, do not enter forbidden zone, whatever, which Israelis

are really good at, and then put the bombs there or put the missiles, whatever. I think they

have actually crafted a cruise type missile that they can fire from their submarines. Netanyahu

has as much as admitted that on occasion in sort of cavalier remarks that he can also send them

from his submarines. So I think that's probably true that they have developed the capability to do that.

I don't think it's true ballistic missile, like we have, the try to answer whatever,

I think you've got to surface the submarine and fire out the submarine's platform,

kind of like a tomahawk with a nuclear warhead.

Because all Iran needs to do is just hit high five and tell him it, and you know, these are...

Doing a pretty good job of it right now. I mean, the scenes obviously are pretty horrific.

You know, they hit their office buildings in Haifa. I don't even know that they're functional.

Thank you, Larry, for being with us today. These are great things. I wish we had some good

things to talk about. How are your children? They're doing good. They're doing fine.

You're good. At least that's positive. Thank you, Larry.

Tell Bolsonaro. Tell Bolsonaro. I said, I love.

See you on Friday, Larry. Yeah, take care. Larry and me, right? Yeah, exactly. See you then.

See you. Bye-bye.

Youth Mental Health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions.

We must strengthen after-school programs. We must make digital literacy tools available

in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children,

and we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy.

Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions,

at EmpowerOurFutureCoalition.com slash Solutions.

Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.

The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now,

the NBA's heating up, March Manus is here, and MLB is almost back.

Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself.

That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app.

For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about,

get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place.

Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.