'Don't Know WHAT He Was Thinking...' Dave Smith Returns For Iran Debate 2! Plus Husam Zomlot

Ceasefire that rings hollow. Only a few hours ago, the world was holding its breath. No president should declare an intention that an entire civilization will die.

Well, it's genocide, isn't it?

Obviously, the market has responded. Who depends on you, Adam?

Your mom?

Okay, I also have a significant other. I'm listening to a song called Ain't nothing gonna break my stride Ain't nothing gonna slow me down And that's how I feel about this.

I know that you're gonna do it, you have to debate him again.

I told your people when they reached out to mine I don't really think this makes sense.

The first debate revealed that he's not that good at it, if I'm honest. Well many of you have been demanding to know when we will release the second round of our great debate about global terrorism, featuring Dave Smith and Adam Sosnick. Well, all will be revealed later in today's show. But we'll begin today with our ongoing coverage of the fragile Iran ceasefire and the massive ongoing turmoil across the Middle East, Hussam Zomlot is the Palestinian Ambassador to the United Kingdom

and he rejoins me in our Census Studio. Welcome back, Ambassador, it's really good to see you.

Thank you, Piers, for having me back.

Where are we with this war, with the ceasefire, with everything that's happening? What's your overview?

A ceasefire that rings hollow. We are in the middle of a cycle. We are not at the end of a cycle. This is one of the most dangerous moments of your lifetime and my lifetime. Only a few hours ago, the world was holding its breath

for an entire civilization, a civilization to be wiped out.

What did you feel about that? About the wording of the post by President Trump? I felt about the word, the wording of the post by President Trump.

I was extremely concerned. Concerned is a diplomatic word, but worry. Because I thought, oops, we are really at an edge here, a real edge. I was concerned we're witnessing a moment similar to the 30s.

Right. I was very scared, not only for myself myself but for the globe and for the children. Should the President of the United States talk in that language? So no president should talk in that language. No president should declare an intention that an entire civilization will die. Well it's genocide isn't it? We'll die tonight. Nobody should do so. And that brings us to the conversation.

And given the gravity of the moment, Piers, it's important that you and I have a conversation today, because as I was driving here, I decided to re-watch our first interview, just to refresh my memory. And I found out that I was saying to you

and to the world through you that history did not begin on 7th of October. That, you know, the 6th of October already was the deadliest year in the West Bank. Second, that Israel will take the attacks of the 7th of October to start a far broader and bigger attack, aggression against the Palestinian people. Remember, they will not target Hamas only. They will target the Palestinian people,

practically warning from the risk of genocide against our people. And I warn this will not only happen in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, where their eyes is on the annexation of the West Bank, and you're following the

settler terrorism and all that is happening.

I think it's appalling.

All that is happening right now. Furthermore, I said Hamas, any other Palestinian group are not the cause of the conflict, they are the consequence of the conflict and short of focusing on the root cause. This will be repeated again and you and I, Pierce, will be discussing the next war and what happens. I remember saying what happens in Palestine does not stay in Palestine.

And that the international community, by either being silenced or worse, being actually complicit and enabling what Israel is doing, we are going to be all sitting ducks. And look where we are today. Look exactly where we are today.

The moment the world allows the normalization of genocide, then you have today, the moment Netanyahu heard a ceasefire arrangements after the announcement of President Trump, he goes into rampage in Lebanon, killing tens of Lebanese and hundreds wounded. And as I was driving again, I was seeing posts by the Lebanese health authorities sharing

photos of children to identify their parents. I mean, so what happens in Gaza did not stay in Gaza. And this is a moment when we think again about the guardrails we have established together. And can we bring back the guardrails, Pierce? Can we really press the brakes right now, especially that the ceasefire doesn't seem to be holding?

Let me play devil's advocate with you for a moment. Please. All right, this is not necessarily what I think, this is what the counter argument is. If you're the Israelis, they have seen for decades now what they believe to be this superpower in the region of Iran, with its tentacles coming out to all these terrorist proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in particular,

all wedded to an ideology of destruction in Israel, of killing Israelis, of destroying Israel, refusing to even concede Israel's right to exist. And Iran has funded this, it has supplied arms and so on. And they're having an existential fight for their own survival. That's how the Israelis see it.

What do you say to people that believe that? To the average Israeli who sees the rockets coming in from all these groups, knows Iran's been funding it, knows they've been propping it up, whatever the historical arguments, which I completely concede are legitimate, but whatever those arguments, if you're the average Israeli and you've seen that, and you feel your country is under this existential threat, they would say they

are doing what they can to defend themselves. What do you say?

I would say to the Israeli people and to the people of the region, but particularly to the Israelis, stop listening to your politicians and stop thinking that you can drive your security by creating the insecurity for everybody else. You can't do that. I mean, Israel's policy has never been just a regime change. Israel's policy has been creating chaos, has been creating disintegration of states, failed states all over us.

Look, in the last month and a half since the beginning of this war on Iran, the target was not really the regime or any military structures only. The target was not really the regime or any military structures only. The target was civilian structures. The target was to train other groups around them so Iran is disintegrated. Does this bring security to Israel? Really? Did the genocide in Gaza bring any security to Israel or what they are doing in the West Bank, the ethnic

cleansing? But do you accept the Iranian regime has been a malevolent regime and that its tentacles have spread out to groups who do want to target and attack Israel on a regular basis?

Do you accept that?

The Iranian regime, the Iranian government, has been an issue, but not just for Israel, not for Israel. But for, primarily, its immediate neighbors, the Arab Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Emirates, all that. Kuwait is being bombed as we speak, and the other Gulf countries. So yes, it is an issue, but look at this. See what the Arab world did for years now.

They realized that Iran, we have issues with Iran, but they chose diplomacy. They chose dialogue. The Arab world chose upgrading the diplomatic relation with Iran to full relations, reopening embassies, Saudi Arabia and Iran. They chose neighborly relationship

because they realized that Iran is a neighbor. It's an ancient civilization. We have to find the formula with Iran. But Israel always is the odd actor in this. They always choose aggression. Now, this is not the first time.

Pierce, this is an 80-year-old cycle. It happened with Lebanon before, before, with Syria, with Jordan, with Egypt, with Iraq. Remember Iraq? And I know that you were one of the voices against the war in Iraq. Remember it was Netanyahu, junior Netanyahu at the time, instigating, propagating the

war against Iraq and now against Iran. Aren't we learning any lesson? After all these years, does Israel really find its peace and its security in destroying other people? Do you really continue arguing that you have the right to exist?

Exist where? Exist on the ruins of your neighbors? Exist in occupied territory? Exist at the skulls of 2 thirds of the Palestinian people after the Nakba. If you want to be a normal state, if you want to normalize your relationship

with the neighboring countries, you have to become normal. Define your bloody borders first and foremost. Israel in its current composition is a racist, expansionist system. And Netanyahu is not the only problem.

Netanyahu is speaking to a wider segment of the Israeli society. We need to resolve this.

OK, here's the problem in Israel at the moment. The government is effectively dominated by people like Ben-Gavir Smodrich, very hard right, very hard liners, who clearly do want to annex the West Bank, who if they had their way, would get rid of all Palestinians from Gaza. They would just kick them out.

We're seeing aggressive expansion of the settlers on the West Bank, which are some appalling scenes happening all the time, which is all at their behest. And then only last week we had this, what I thought was a despicable spectacle in the Knesset, a Benghavi cracking champagne open

as he wore his noose badge on his lapel of his suit with his cohorts, celebrating a new law, which, and we're gonna, we've got footage of it here as we're talking about it, which I just thought was repellent. This is in the Knesset, in the parliamentary center

of Israel, celebrating the fact that a new law had come out which only relates to Palestinians, that they determine are terrorists and can therefore be executed with the death penalty. It doesn't apply to Israelis. Now, that to me, on any level,

is just another form of apartheid. I mean, that plays into the whole argument about the occupation, as many say, of Gaza and so on. They're not even trying to hide it, right? There is a two-tier system now in Israeli law, clearly celebrated by people in the government.

If you're Palestinian, you'll get the death penalty for committing an act of terror, but not if you're an Israeli. And I found the way they celebrated that horrific. And I'm not even Palestinian.

This is not just another form of apartheid. This is flagrant in your face, apartheid. Yes. And according to our colleagues from South Africa who experienced South Africa apartheid, what they had was a picnic compared to the Israeli apartheid

and I'm quoting their officials as they visited Palestine recently. And this two-tier system, the racism, the signaling of Palestinians have been ongoing for a long time.

The problem is it has not been revealed as such. Ben-Gvir, he is convicted by an Israeli court to be a terrorist. The lady, Maloch, a member of Knesset who sat on that platform, had a video of asking her young boy, what will you do when you grow up?

He said, I will be a soldier, I'll drive a jeep and go around killing Arabs and Palestinians. She hugged him. This is the kind of incitement that goes at the top of the Israeli government and levels that go unchecked. And this is exactly where.

Again, but again, but again. How did we allow this to fester? Again, to play devil's advocate again, you could say the same thing about Gaza, right? You could say that Hamas has wielded an influence over Gazans where many of them would have young kids

who they indoctrinate to want to kill Israelis. It works on both sides of this. I'm not getting into the validity of the history and everything else. I'm just saying, there are now, I think, quite significant numbers of Israelis

that feel the way you just articulated, but also Palestinians who feel the same way about Israelis. How do we get through this?

No, no, no, but it's important. Also part of our first conversation was the double standards. And please, let's talk about that, because we have suffered from it for 18 years,

80 years, sorry.

80 years of suffering from sheer duplicity, selectivity, double standards. What is applied on Israel is not applied on us or anybody else. So you know that there is 127 attacks only in the last month, terror attacks, settler militias.

Israel is now literally creating para-terror militias to attack our communities. 100 communities in the West Bank, from the very north to the south, have been subjected to this terror, terror campaign. Eight Palestinians were killed only in the last few weeks

by settlers. Do you think one of them was brought to justice? There are any charge, any prosecution?

No, I've seen clear evidence that the IDF basically turns a blind eye to a lot of this stuff.

And if you're talking about apartheid, look, the ceasefire in Gaza was announced the moment all Israeli hostages have gone back to their homes and families, and even the last body of an Israeli soldier was exhumed, so the ceasefire was announced. Good.

What about our hostages? Thousands of them in Israeli jail, you know, without trial, without charge. What about our bodies? Do you know, Pierce, that now Israel has 776 Palestinian bodies buried in what they call symmetry of numbers, denying their family the sense of closure and grief, and this has been happening for years.

Do you know that if a Palestinian detainee dies in prison, in Israeli jail, and 90 have died since October 7. 90 Palestinians have died because of torture, because of rape, and these racists would go and protest against any prosecution or charging of the rapers. However, however, all these accounts of death.

So the Israeli system is capable to kill Palestinians with impunity.

There are 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, is that right?

There are 9,000.

So my question for you is, I know some have been held without trial, I always think that's wrong, but how many of the 9,000 have committed acts of violence against Israelis?

Well, the conviction rate of the Israeli... I'm asking that question. The conviction rate is almost 100%, 99%. I understand, but I'm asking you how many of the 9,000 currently in prison, Palestinians in Israeli prisons, have committed acts of violence against Israelis? I don't know, and then you need international... But you must accept that many of them will have done it, done. No, no, you must accept also international legality because do you consider that to be violence or resistance?

Well, I would argue, but to your point about what's going on with the settlers, I think some of them are clearly committing acts of terrorism, and yet the new law that's been brought in would not cover them, it only covers Palestinians.

And so I feel that's outrageous, right? So just to be clear, I think that's an outrageous double standard. I know. But I also am not naive enough to think that of the 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, that many of those people

may not have committed heinous acts of violence. I'm sure they have. So you go and legislate a death penalty only for Palestinians. Well, I think it's wrong. Only for Palestinians. But when many Israeli terrorists in the West Bank are killing Palestinians in real time in front of your eyes, it goes absolutely.

It's outrageous. But that's the heart of it. And you cannot compare a Palestinian group, Hamas or others, with a country, a state, Israel, that has a seat in the UN. Do you think we hold them to the same standards?

Where I would compare is the scenes I've seen of settlers charging around in the last few weeks setting fire to homes and so on and killing people and wounding others is reminiscent of what we saw from a mass when they streamed over the border on October 7th and did that in kibbutzes, right? It's the same thing.

There are standards to treat hostages, detainees, prisoners of war, call them whatever you want. These standards does not include that if a Palestinian prisoner, detainees, prisoners of war, call them whatever you want. These standards does not include that if a Palestinian prisoner, detainee, rightly so, wrongly so, put that aside. If he dies in Israeli jail, do you know that Israel

force his body, take his body to continue the sentence? Have you ever heard this anywhere in the world? It's absolutely unimaginable. The list of things Israel is coming up with by way of torture, oppression, they think they can crush the will of a nation

and the spirit of a nation by extra killings and extra. So this is a state-sponsored mass murder of the 9,000 people. And who knows if these people are innocent or not. Israel will round you and go back, please, they will come in the middle of the night, arrest you, and then the charge will be, we think you may at one point in your life commit

a crime against us. You may be thinking about committing a crime against us.

So no, the system is absolutely. The New York Times report that came out yesterday, which was Tuesday, it came out and it laid out in pretty strong detail what went on in the Situation Room at the White House when Prime Minister Netanyahu was there, joined by the head of Mossad remotely

with President Trump and his top people. And it made it clear, this reporting, that Netanyahu persuaded Trump in that room, in that meeting, of the validity of striking against Iran. But it painted a picture based on their own intelligence that if you took out the Ayatollah

and a few others at the top of the regime, the people would then rise up and then the regime would lose control and wouldn't have the power to shut the Strait of Hormuz. None of that has really happened. The Ayatollah was taken out with some of the top people,

but he's been replaced very quickly. The people have not risen up for a number of reasons, not least there are bombs flying around everywhere until the ceasefire. And thirdly, I think they massively underestimated the Iranian ability to use the Strait of Hormuz as a weapon, a very effective, powerful weapon

that has paralyzed the global economy. So it's clear to me that the influence was driven by the Israelis. Was it, as the Israeli opposition leader calls, the biggest mistake, do you think, in Israeli political history?

Well, Israel is drunken with power, and it could not have done this without the US. Israel knows it. That's why it had to drag the US into this. But the mindset is very clear. The mindset is Israel wants to reign supreme on the entire nation. And listen to Netanyahu from the beginning of this. You heard him saying now Israel is a superpower only next to the US.

Did you hear him comparing Genkis Khan to Jesus? And he is saying that he is Genkis Khan, Israel is that empire, but we are not going into the value system of Jesus. And you know Jesus was born in Palestine. It's our country is the birthplace of Christianity.

And we are so proud of the values. And the values that Jesus exported to the world was that of being anti-oppression, against injustice. Primarily, it's not just the other cheek and peace. We are against injustice. And then this mentality and this mindset

and this policy has dragged all of us into this. Iran is a vast country. It's an ancient civilization. Put aside the regime, they are so proud as a nation. People that are so educated, my friend.

And they're all- I meet many Iranians and they come up to me and we talk about it. And they are, I mean, the cultural richness of Iran

is extraordinary. Put aside that they don't want to define their borders and some of them now are picking on countries like Turkey and Egypt for that matter. Netanyahu says officially we're going to finish off the Shiite axis and then we will go to the Sunnis. Put aside all that, which is very concerning and should be discussed because we have to

have the guardrails right now because they will do it. The real conversation right now is how can we stop this? And the first and foremost is that the US must draw the wedge now, must say enough is enough. And I'm following the conversation in the US. I saw your episode with Tucker Carlson recently, a brilliant conversation between the two of you,

but not just Tucker.

But you know what, if I was an Israeli, or if I was a Jew actually around the world, there are 15 million Jewish people around the world. It's a small, relatively small global community. The most worrying statistic I've seen recently is how increasingly unpopular Israel's become

in the United States. There's now a majority of Americans who are in the polls, 60% I think, who have a negative view of Israel. That has been driven by the actions of the Israeli government. I'm always very careful not to criticise Israelis or Jewish people, right? So I get accused of being anti-Semitic when I attack the government's decision-making, but I wasn't accused of being anti-British when I attacked Tony Blair for his illegal invasion of Iraq. So I wasn't accused of being anti-British when I attacked Tony Blair for his illegal

invasion of Iraq. So I don't follow that argument. I think it's a lame argument. But I would be really worried. I go to New York a lot. I think there's a million Jews live in New York. It's the biggest population of Jews outside of Tel Aviv. And if I'm saying that statistic that 60% of Americans have a negative view of Israel, that would really concern me. And I would want to ask why, why are we becoming so unpopular?

Why is Israel becoming so unpopular, the home of the Jewish people? And to me, it all comes back to this deal that Netanyahu did to get power again with the very hard right of Ben-Gavir, Smodrich and others and they have I think dragged him ever harder to a position now which is causing a lot of damage

to the reputation of Israel as a country and causing a lot of safety issues for Jews and I feel that strongly as someone who has a lot of Jewish issues for Jews. And I feel that strongly as someone who has a lot of Jewish friends and feels very concerned for them and hates all forms of antisemitism. So this is a dangerous infection point.

And Netanyahu, he doesn't, at the moment he's been avoiding elections. He is avoiding a corruption criminal trial. Everywhere he goes bombing, his popularity rises a bit in Israel, which I find baffling in itself,

but it means he also avoids accountability. So there's lots of stuff going on here.

Absolutely, and there are two main points here you raise. The first is about Israel-US relations, and this is much longer than just the current situation. I'll share with you a personal experience. You know, I was the Palestinian ambassador to the US before the UK, and it was during Trump's first time.

And I arrived early 2017 to prepare for my president, a summit between us, only two weeks after my arrival, I arrived in March, April, 2017. And the first meeting between us and President Trump, I was even myself surprised and shocked, how positive the chemistry between the two men,

the conversation and how deep it is, and then we went on, a meeting after another, all the way to September in the UN, and then we traveled together to receive President Trump in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christianity and Jesus, and to meet President Mahmoud Abbas.

Everything was going in such a perfect direction until Netanyahu got his tricks. And then in a U-turn, sudden, President Trump announces the closure of our mission, the moving of the embassy, the American, the US embassy, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, et cetera, et cetera.

So every time we are coming closer to a diplomatic track, fragile it could be, it could be, Israel intervenes, Netanyahu intervenes. So the question is, how on earth the US is just following? What is the US interest? Does the US want to see failed states in the region?

And does the US want to see global economy dismantling?

You know what I think? Honestly, I'm running a bit out of time, but I honestly think this is gonna be a massive wake up call. Because apart from anything else, Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 in the election in America

on not taking America into any more 2024 in the election in America on not taking America into any more wars in the Middle East. That was his big thing. And now he's dragged them into the biggest and most dangerous war imaginable. And I think it's backfired.

I think he miscalculated. I think Netanyahu bamboozled him and sold him a pup. He told him a version of events that would happen, which have not materialized, and it's caused Trump a lot of political damage.

But he was doing all that, just this last line, about, because he wants to avoid the biggest elephant in the room. He doesn't want to deal with the Palestinian issue. And the Palestinian question is the question. No matter where you look at it.

Do you know what I agree with? I agree with you. It's a question of rights, a question of law, a question of accountability. Until the Palestinian issue gets resolved, nothing is really going to change. I completely agree with that. I think that that has been this running saw, which has been the dominant thing in the region for decades. And until it gets properly sorted out, there are gonna be these issues to deal with.

And if you allow me, please, please, continue challenging this long, decades-long practice of labeling. You are anti-Semite, you don't approve our right to exist, all that. This has been such an enabler of the situation to fester.

But I think people have had enough of it. They've used it against Tucker, they've used it against Tucker, they've used it against Megyn Kelly, they've used it against me. People like Ben Shapiro try to use it to weaponize anti-Semitism, to silence people,

to stop people criticizing the government. Well, I'm sorry, but journalists, the number one job of a journalist is to hold governments to account, whoever they are, in any country, whether it's the governing body of Hamas in Gaza, whether it's the Israeli government,

whether it's my government here, whether it's the American government. The day a journalist loses the ability to do that because other groups brand them by criticizing a government that you hate the people of that country, that's a dangerous road

that we go down. Before I let you go, I just want to ask you, always great to talk to you, thank you for coming in. Kanye West has just been banned from the UK because of his anti-semitic remarks, pro-Hitler stuff and so on. There's a free speech debate raging about that. Was it right of the UK government to ban him from coming in to perform in a music festival?

I really didn't follow the whole story and I didn't know what Kanye West had said in the past. I'm not really equipped with this issue. However, I have this to say. There is a fine line between you being anti-Israeli policies, you being anti-apartheid, anti-occupation, anti-colonisation, anti-oppression, anti-genocide, and you must,

and every human being must. And you having words that are conflated with the Jewish people. The Jewish people have nothing to do with Israel. By the way, Israel is more than 30% of the Jewish community in New York voted for Mamdani. And the leaders of the marches you see in London. And many of the younger ones. And the leaders of the marches you see in London now are Jewish people.

But those in the Israeli camp who deliberately conflate between anti-Israeli policies and anti-Semitism are doing a huge disservice to the actual issue of anti-Semitism. So it is very important to give the space for the conversation because shutting down this space is going to lead to far more.

You know who wins if you brand everyone anti-Semitic for criticising Netanyahu? Genuine anti-Semites can operate under the radar. Because if everyone's been tarred with that brush and most of them are not actually anti-Semitic, the people that genuinely are anti-Semitic get away with it.

Allow me this. You know, the Israelis always accuse us, the Palestinians, of being anti-Semitic and this whole Semites, we are the original of Semites, the rewritten of history, the erasure of ancient Palestine. This is for another conversation. But the real conversation is this proposition that I am an anti-Semite is ridiculous, because you know why? Because it assumes that had my oppressors been non-Jewish,

not Jewish, I would have been okay with it. No, the issue is the fact of my oppression. Whoever would have been my oppressor, I would have been against it and resist it. And regardless of the race or identity, we are resisting, we are challenging the occupiers,

the colonizers, the besiegers, the genociders, regardless of their religion. And this is what we need to keep saying it. And by the way, the Israeli army is made not just of Jewish soldiers, it's made of Muslim soldiers, Christian soldiers, Israel in the last few days

have laid closure to the Church of Holy Sepulchre during the Palm Sunday and prevented Muslims from reaching Al-Aqsa Mosque during Eid and Ramadan. So this is not a religious war and anybody who wants to claim that this is a religious war should not.

This is about an occupied and occupier, a colonized and colonizer. And you as peers to expose this has been a major

part of our journey in the last few years. Ambassador good to see you again thank you very much. You're welcome. I appreciate you coming in. In a moment we will turn our attention to an important big-picture debate about the politics of Iran war it could be the de facto end of Trump's presidency or perhaps his defining legacy if Democrats get their way, maybe the literal end of his presidency by way of impeachment. Whatever the outcome, it has certainly

transformed Trump's fortunes. We just don't know yet whether history will view that as good or bad. And whoever comes next, whether Republican or Democrat, will have to grapple with an intense aversion to Israeli influence on US politics and some serious new questions about America's role in the world. Before we get to all of that, a word on the elephant not in the room. A couple of weeks ago, we hosted a debate between Dave Smith, a familiar face to our viewers, and Adam Sosnick, part of the PBD podcast crew and an uncensored debutante.

It's fair to say that most people, including PBD's many fans and followers, did not think it went well for Adam. Patrick McDavid himself took the extraordinary step of dispensing some stewardly on-air advice to Adam about his ability to represent their brand.

Obviously the market has responded.

Despite what you think, I haven't listened or watched any of the internet comments. I don't actually believe you. Like I have, like I don't go onto Twitter. I don't check the comments. It's just not something and I do Some people are messaging me on my neck. What do you think? I don't know people are saying stuff and I'm listening to a song

Called ain't nothing gonna break a my stride. Ain't nothing gonna slow me down. And that's how I feel about this

I've seen you make better arguments with Bassem Yusuf than you did with Dave Smith I didn't see you making arguments on Dave Smith. And the reason why I'm doing this with you openly and I'm talking to you openly with you is there's an element of also representing where you're coming from, where the expectation is, hey, where do you go and be professionals? That's not how I handle debates. I don't handle debates that way.

That's not my MO.

So if you're close to me and you're handling it that way, that is not my style. Well, at the end of that debate, Vinny Ashana, another familiar face to our viewers, concluded that Adam had only one option to save face and the PBD team's reputation and to burnish his debating credentials. He must face a rematch.

People are like, he's on cocaine. I read the comments because I want to know what the temperature is. You have the arsenal, you had the ammunition, you had this big-ass arsenal and you just used a pistol. You were just like kind of going after and doing personal and I was disappointed because I was like yo you have it, you have it, you didn't use it and this is my attitude. When I was young and I'd get my ass whooped my mom would be like you're

gonna go outside you're gonna fight that guy know that you're going to do it, you have to debate them again. Now I've got to say that before I say anything more, I really respect the PBD podcast crew led by Patrick for doing that debate about the debate we had on this show. Most people wouldn't do that. So full credit to them for having that kind of in-house debate and for being brutally honest with each other. But of course, following that discussion, we of course offered to host a new debate between Dave Smith and between Adam Sosnick. Adam initially agreed but then claimed that ultimately he'd been overwhelmed by competing diary events. Well, and just maybe the very powerful human instinct

for self-preservation, only he knows. It was Dave Smith's clash with Ben Ferguson six weeks ago, part of a much wider panel, which spiraled into that enormous hissy fit from Ben Shapiro and teed up the SOSNIC debate in the first place. And since Ben Ferguson never ducks a challenge,

he has manfully stepped in to fill Adam's empty chair for what will actually probably be a better debate. So joining me now is host of part of the problem, Dave Smith, up against Ben Ferguson, co-host of the Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome to both of you.

Thank you, Ben, for stepping into the bridge. First of all, Dave, I mean, welcome back, obviously, but, you know, Adam was gonna come on for the rematch and then has suddenly found a series of scheduling issues and conflicts, which in my which from where I come, could be probably best described as bottling it.

What do you feel about it?

Here's what you know, I cancel things to come on your show.

I love that about you Ben Ferguson. I always say to my team.

I had something today and then you said Dave and you, and I said I'm here. I'm here for you my friend.

You know what Ben, You and I go back, honestly, we go back to about 2010 doing this, and you've never bottled a debate in your life, and I love that about you. And thank you for stepping into the breach. But Dave, first of all, Adam's decision not to have the rematch.

What is your view of that?

Well, I mean, I told your people when they reached out to mine to be like, Hey, we want to do this. I go, I don't really think this makes sense to do this rematch. I, you know, I, by the way, I agree with you. I love Patrick Pitt, David and Vinny and Tom, I got nothing but respect for those guys. I did think that was cool that they did it. And I thought they did it in a, in a cool way where they weren't like, you know, Pat, Pat was bending over backward to not throw Adam under the bus, but to try to kind of

give him a chance to go, Hey, you know, what'd you learn from that or whatever? And I was, I was pretty annoyed by the fact that he just took that opportunity to take more shots at me. Look, I don't know what Adam was thinking, approaching the debate that way. I don't know why he thought that would go any other way than the way it did. In his defense, I will say, pretty good tune.

Well, he's not here. I wish he was here because we could have just put it to bed. I don't think it would have gone much better for him. I think the first debate revealed that he's not that good at it, if I'm honest. Like him personally, it was being that good at it, if I'm honest.

Like him personally, they've always been very good to me, that team. I think if Patrick had come on, or Vinny actually, it would have been probably a better tussle. But you've got Ben Ferguson here, who you've tussled with before. Ben, welcome back, as I said. Just one rule, because there aren't like five people on a panel here all squabbling. Yeah, we can have a real conversation today. Well, that's the point.

And I think the one rule I'd like to try and keep to is let's not have too much interrupting. Let's let each other speak. Let's have a proper debate about what is actually a really interesting debate, I think. And it all stemmed from something that Dave Smith on this show said about the United States being well, let's listen to it.

The IDF is the worst terrorist organization in the region. Let's get real. The United States of America is arguably the worst terrorist organization in the world. If you want to look over the last 25 years, how many innocent civilians we've slaughtered. You're getting us, you're getting us into the neocon, yeah, that's right. You're getting us into the neocon seventh war,

which they've been dying for for the last 25 years.

Now as a consequence of that, all hell broke loose obviously online. And Ben Shapiro said about Dave, I'm sorry, but you hate the country. If you say America is the worst terrorist organization in the world, you just do.

And Dave has since responded to that on this show. But Ben, let's just get you to, because Dave's already explained what he meant about this. And many people agree with it, right? And just to prep you up for this, you're about to defend the charge that America

is not the world's worst terrorist organization within hours of Donald Trump posting to the world that a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. But in the context of the words coming from the president of the United States,

quite hard to argue that that is in itself, those words are not the words you would normally associate with the leader of a terrorist organization.

Yeah, look, I think two things about what the president said there is clearly talking to the leadership in Iran. And he's saying that you are going to destroy your people by not opening the Strait of Hormuz. I'm not screwing around. This goes back to FAFO. The president of the United States of America is using the same foreign policy that Hillary

Clinton used, that Bill Clinton used, that Jimmy Carter used and that Barack Obama used.

When did any of them threaten, Ben? When did any of them threaten?

Let me finish the point I'm going to make there real quick because it's important. This president, the only difference between his foreign policy with Iran and the other Democrats I mentioned was they all said that they couldn't get a nuclear weapon and Donald Trump said I am actually agreeing with you and I'm going to do it. I'm going to stop them.

And you cannot be a terrorist to the world while Donald Trump is the president of the United States of America, shut down shipping lanes you have no right to shut down and expect that there be no consequences. The president doesn't bluff. And so when he puts that out, I think he's had about enough of this. I think he's had about enough of the fact that Iran,

even after we go and kill their first level, their second level, their third level, and their fourth level of people, they're still not giving in. He's like, okay, you guys want to play this game, F-A-F-O, and I'm going to act, which is exactly, by the way, why I voted for him.

But just before I go back to Dave to respond to that, explain to me the difference between the belief that Donald Trump has about Iran, that they want death to America, death to all Americans, that's why they want a nuclear weapon, and if they get one, they will kill millions of Americans, which is why America has to stop them. And the president of the United States saying he wants to wipe out an entire civilization

in one night, which can only be done with nuclear weapons or weapons of that power. Yeah, well, I think you- So, as I say, look, I don't think he's going to do that.

But he has said- No, he's not going to do that, I don't think he's going to do that. No, he's not going to do that.

But he has said he's going to do that. Many people think he's already committed a war crime in signaling his intention to do that. But that's for another day. But my point is, what is the difference in terms of language between the head of Al-Qaeda,

say, Bin Laden, saying, wanting to wipe out millions of Americans or Iran wanting to do that and America wanting to do that. I mean, that would be Dave's point, I'm sure, in a moment. But before we go to him, what is the difference?

Well, look, I think the president here is a guy that always pushes the limit on what he's saying, especially when he's dealing with bad guys, whether it was in Venezuela, whether it's narco terrorists or whether it's the Ayatollah and those that are in charge right now in Iran. Do I think he's going to indiscriminately kill a bunch of people? Of course not. Do I think that's the intent of the tweet?

Of course not. If you've talked to the president and you know what he says here, you can either just try to hit him on that and score political points, or you can look at what the president has done so far. He has been incredibly surgical with the strikes that he's had. He's not been going after and just bombing. I'll go to an example that I think Dave used on this show, saying Israel is just bombing all these buildings in Gaza, for example.

That's not what the president's done here at all. The president has been very surgical in using our military. I have no doubt that that's what he's going to do here. And what he's saying is, if I go off your electrical grid, you literally are going back to the Stone Ages when there was no electricity. So if you want to hit the president political points to win a political argument, fine, do that.

But what the president's saying in that tweet, I think, is directly to the leadership in Iran and telling them, I'm not screwing around. This is going to be very bad for you. Open up the Strait of Hormuz and do it immediately. We can have a ceasefire. You guys have been talking to us for a while now. You know how to do stall and delay tactics.

This is a deadline. This is a red line. By the way, other presidents have given red lines before. They just don't back them up. This president does. Barack Obama didn't back up his red line multiple times on foreign policy issues, including when chemical weapons were used.

Well, that is true. Yeah, that is true. But Dave Smith, let me come to you. I mean, my big problem with this is, like I say, this will be airing after that deadline has passed. And my guess is the Iranians will not concede in the way that Trump wants them to before

this deadline. Maybe I'm wrong. And maybe they will. But I don't think they will. And therefore, the call is bluffed to a degree. And Trump will not then go through with what he vowed to do, which is wipe out

the entire Iranian population. And then he becomes the emperor with no clothes to a degree, the boy who cried wolf. It's like there's a danger in that as well, in the president of the world's greatest military not doing what he says he would do if XYZ doesn't happen.

Well, OK, so let me say, first of all, there's just this obvious contradiction in what Ben just said there, which is that on one hand, he's saying the president doesn't bluff. He draws a red line and he sticks to it. And then on the other hand, saying, ah, that's just Donald Trump. He draws a red line and he sticks to it. And then on the other hand saying, ah, that's just Donald Trump. He talks crazy like this.

And you're just trying to win a cheap political argument if you look at what he's literally saying. It can't be both of those things now, can it? If he doesn't bluff, then Donald Trump has promised to send them back to the Stone Age, that it will be the end of the civilization never to be recovered.

And that presumably starting to hit their intellectual grip is hits. There is bridge and power plant days. Okay. So if he doesn't, right, right. So remember the non interrupting role. So if he's either bluffing or he's not bluffing here now, obviously it does bode well for this particular political argument that sparked off on your show a few weeks ago that now Donald Trump is making these threats.

But the position bends in here. It's almost like being the White House press secretary. If we were talking last week and I had said Donald Trump's going to say this, you would have been like, no, he's not. No one's saying that. This is ridiculous.

But now he's not no one's saying that this is ridiculous, but now he said it So now you have to defend how he doesn't bluff, but also he doesn't really mean what he said look Pierce I don't know. I hope you're right, but all the indications here are that tonight's 8 p.m Deadline is gonna come and go without the Iranians capitulating and so Donald Trump has really put all his chips in on the center Of the table here. So to the dynamic you just laid out, he's now painted himself into this corner for absolutely no reason.

He's painted himself into this corner where he's either got to do something huge or, as you said, be exposed as just being a complete bluffer.

My guess is, hang on, hang on, My guess is he'll say, you know what? We're getting somewhere with the Iranians. The new leaders want to do a deal, so we're going to give them a bit more time, which is what he'd been doing throughout this war. And Ben, the trouble with doing that is if you keep doing that, but the Iranians keep saying, no, we're not.

We're not talking to you. What are you talking about? And they keep the host rates of Hormuz shut and they carry on firing weapons at their Gulf neighbors and they carry on exactly what they're doing. And then you have Pete Hegster saying, we've got total air dominance

and right until one of our fighter planes gets shot down and we have to send in $300 million worth of rescue mission to get the pilots out. That doesn't say to me that all these defenses have been destroyed, does it?

Pierce, we have total air dominance over the country and hitting one of our planes. Yeah, when you're throwing a lot of stuff up in the air, going after airplanes, there is a very good chance you'll be able to get one. That's why it's called war. No one said that they would never touch one of our airplanes. Go find that quote it doesn't exist. But the fact

that we have total dominance over their space is proof the fact that we're able to go in there with helicopters and do real search and rescue missions and bring them home by the way some of those helicopters also got shot at from the ground some of them with a K 47 from the ground. That doesn't mean that it's totally perfect in In Venezuela, we had total air superiority there. We also had one of the guys that was flying

one of the helicopters get shot from the ground. It's called war. The idea that like people aren't gonna get hit or things aren't gonna get hit or equipment aren't gonna get hit, that's a video game, that's absurd.

That is not what the president's saying. That's not what the Pentagon is saying. When you have total air dominance, it means you can do and hit what you want to 99.9% of the time and they're not coming back after you. They don't have radar systems. We've taken them out. We're able to pretty much fly freely over that country and hit targets that we want to hit. And so I think what you're saying is, is basically you're trying to make it a lot worse than it is. Dave said on the last show, and I was watching earlier as I was prepping for this, that this is a quagmire. If you go, and this is the part where I say it's like rooting against America. The definition of a quagmire,

if you ask social media, is a little different than if you actually look up the definition or you ask AI. A quagmire is years. A quagmire is two plus years if you look at how they teach it in military schools. This isn't coming from me. This is if you go to West Point, they say if you are bogged down in a war and you are losing or stagnant, they use Vietnam as an example of that. They use the never ending war in Afghanistan as another example. The word quagmire starts being used after years. We're talking weeks into this thing, like two months in. We're talking about the fact that we've taken out and you say, well, the president's got a problem here and they don't believe him. You've taken out their top leader, then their replacement, then their replacement, then

their replacement. You've taken out their air superiority. You've taken out their Navy. Like you guys, I'm sorry. Like the idea that this is a quagmire or is not successful and well, they won't believe the president if he bluffs on this one. Call the last four dead guys that were the leader of Iran

and tell me they don't believe President Trump.

Why if the United States has such incredible, overwhelming military success in this war so far, why are the Straits of Hormuz still shut?

Because I think if you look at the issue there, number one, you're dealing with international issues there, and number two, you're also dealing with the fact that it is a waterway. And if you can't just like go in there and bomb the hell out of it and then expect the ships to come through, it has to be orderly. Three, if you talk to maritime individuals, specifically those that deal with insurance, I did about an hour and a half phone call saying, teach me everything. It has to be a safe place or you cannot get the insurance. The last thing you do is go in there militarily because then nobody will insure any of these

boats at all. So therefore they will not come through the Strait of Hormuz because they can't get the insurance policy they need for the maritime movement of those boats. Some of this is not that complicated. You just need to ask questions.

OK, before we go to Dave, just be very clear with me in your head what victory looks like. At what point can the Americans, Donald Trump, claim victory and leave?

To me or Dave?

To you, before I go to Dave.

Oh, to me. I think there's two different definitions here of victory. I think there's the clear victory, which Trump talked about from the very beginning, and all past Democratic presidents since 1979. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

That is my first definition of victory. If we have Iran that has been pushed back to the Stone Ages and they're nowhere close to enriching their uranium at 60-plus percent, and that we know that we are safe from a nuclear Iran and a dirty bomb. They've clearly said over and over again, death to America. We know that's their intent.

They've been saying it for 40 plus years. That is my definition of victory. A bonus on top of that, a tier two victory, which I think the media has already made this the new standard, which I disagree with fundamentally, is that there is regime change. The president's made it clear he would love for there to be regime change and by the way there has been. We've killed their top four guys so that's 4x regime change in my opinion. If four people that were in charge are no longer in charge that's pretty good.

Would I love for the people in Iran to be able to take over and have genuine freedom? Yes. Is that what I consider a victory? No. That is a bonus. All I care about is that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon and they're not killing more men and women in uniform. They've killed more men and women in uniform from America than any other country in my lifetime. I want that threat off the table. That's my definition of victory. No doubt about it.

Dave Smith, your response?

Well, I mean, again, just as is almost always the case with war propaganda, it's just the contradictions are just everywhere around. It's like my secondary, I was about to, my secondary goal is regime change, but there's already been regime change in this war,

but it's not a war, but we've always been at war for 47 years.

I've always said it's a war.

I mean, Piers, not a war, but we've always been at war for 47 years. I mean, Pierce, okay, buddy. Yeah. Okay. Well you say it's a war. The administration won't admit that cause it's totally illegal if it is. Um, even Donald Trump himself said we can't call it a war for legal reasons. Um, but yes, of course it is a war. Um, but I mean, Pierce, if you just think about how many people, and I gotta say, particularly I'm stunned by the Iranian expat types, which I've debated a couple on your show before.

Cuz I always am a little bit more forgiving to them when they say something like, it's just how brutally repressive the Mullah in the Ayatollah's regime is and how they wanna liberate the people. But not one of them, not one of them have jumped off board since Donald Trump has essentially announced total war against the civilian population. them. Not one of them have jumped off board since Donald Trump has essentially announced total war against the civilian population.

And here again, Ben repeats, send them back to the Stone Age. I'm sorry, did women have liberation in the Stone Age? Is that when everyone gets to take their boogers off?

Stone Age is not having electricity, I said that earlier. But Dave, I don't want to say, but I said it earlier. Right, right. And does that lead to- That means not having electricity. That has nothing to do with the women's rights. Ben, hang on, hang on. We said we're not going to interrupt you.

Let me just say on that point, Ben.

That's war against the civilian population.

Well Dave, what Ben is doing, is what I've noticed a lot of people on the right have been doing, who are still very pro-Trump in this war, is you're translating what Trump apparently meant when he said, we're gonna bomb you back to the Stone Ages. You have decided it means no electricity because it's the only way you can really justify it. Right? And I would say, Ben, I would say this,

when you said victory, Westwild seems to get you to clarify what victory is. When you said it's stopping the Iranians from developing a nuclear weapon, a dirty bomb. But that's what we were told had been achieved last summer. At the end of a 12-day war, Trump literally said that. We have stopped them developing a nuclear

weapon. Mission accomplished. Here we are less than a year later, nine months later, and we're being told that victory will be if the United States and Israel stop the Iranians developing a nuclear weapon. But what's happened in nine months?

So, Piers, great question. You have 60 percent enriched uranium that we know about that they still have that's part of what we want to get out of the country. That is just taking data and looking at it and then saying, is this still a threat? How quickly can you get 60 percent to where it's military grade, to where you can get a dirty bomb?

It's really damn close. So the president made another calculus here and said, OK, we hit those two facilities. They didn't stop what they were doing. They still have it way too close to military grade where they can do a dirty bomb. We know their intent is to kill innocent people and get a dirty bomb. They've said it over and over again.

So therefore, because of that information, we are going to go in yet again and we're going to make sure that America is safe and the rest of the world is safe.

So Ben, do you accept that if the Americans and Israelis do not get the enriched uranium out of Iran, this is not a victory, it is a failure. The war will have been lost.

I think there's two ways you can look at that. And again, this is coming from a military mindset. Number one is I talk to people in the military, say, look, if they can't access it, right? If we bomb it in and we push it in and they can't access it anymore,

that could be considered a victory from a military standpoint perspective. And again, this is way above my pay grade, that's why I ask other people questions that are experts. Would we love to get it out? Yes, but if we can't get it out and they can't get it out, that can be a victory. It depends on where it is, it depends on how much we bombed it, it depends on how secure it is if it stays in the ground there. So I don't I don't say it's only one of the other success or failure. It depends on the information on the ground. And if it is in a place where they're like,

no one's going to be able to get to this, we can't get to it near the Kine, it's now unusable. That's a success as well. But I'd love to get it out of there. Yes, I don't

like Iranians having anything close to if you put it in the ground, it's done, it's done. Let me come back to Dave. I mean, the problem is I've got increasingly limited confidence in the statements about the state of Iran's uranium and ability to build a bomb because of what happened last summer. I believed, I believed what I was told that after the 12 day war, that was it. The threat of being neutralized, they couldn't build a nuclear weapon. That was it. And here we are in March.

This was last summer. And in March, now we're being told they've got all this enriched uranium. None of it got removed last time. It's still there. And how are we going to know whether we've removed it from their ability to use it or not?

We're not gonna know. So, you know, unfortunately that to me doesn't look like a very substantive victory claim to me. It's just gonna muddy the waters again.

That's right.

That's right. I mean, and look, the fact that the goalposts just get moved so much. And like you said, it was not that long ago, just last summer, where all the people who supported the 12-day war were boasting and demonizing anybody who opposed it

as what a success this was because we obliterated their nuclear program. But like, if we have to go back and fight a whole new war right now over that nuclear threat, then that was wrong. Man, you got to admit you were wrong about it back then.

And if not, but can I just-

Here is the quote from Trump, Dave. This is last year, after the 12-day war. I don't think they'll ever do it again. They've had it. It was a complete obliteration. They were set back decades.

Turned out decades was actually nine months.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm sorry. This is just too ridiculous to stand. And if I could just go back to the last point there, because, you know, seeing as how this whole thing started off of my claim of the US, I mean, even if we are to accept Ben's interpretation of what Donald Trump was saying here, if you were just saying like, no, the Stone Age means we take out all the bridges and all the electricity. Like, OK, but what does that mean?

Hey, Ben, Ben, listen, we said the one thing was we're not gonna interrupt. You've interrupted every time I've spoke and I haven't done it once to you. So let me finish making a point here. So what does that mean?

What does it mean when you take out the electricity to a civilian population of 90 plus million people. It means babies on incubators die. It means people have heart attacks in their homes and can't get to the hospital because the bridge has been taken out. It means like the worst, most brutal level of human suffering inflicted intentionally

on a civilian population. And if you wanna sit here and play all these games where like it's terrorism whenever any of them do it, but it's counter-terrorism if America or the Israelis do it, I mean, fine. It's like you picking on me for saying quagmire.

Instead of quagmire, disaster, whatever word you wanna use. At the end of the day, what you're talking about here

is terroristic in nature.

Let me ask you a question, a serious question. How do you do the calculus, and if we go with the premise that you just said about if you take out the electricity, by the way, you're assuming they have no generators in the hospital, which they do. You're assuming that ambulances can't run. They still can. But how do you do the calculus?

Well, if you take out all the bridges, it makes it tougher.

But how do you do the calculus of Iran getting a nuclear weapon and then killing a whole lot of innocent people? I don't like war.

OK, I don't like innocent people suffering.

But when I look at a nuclear weapon in the hands of a terrorist regime that sponsors more terrorism than any other country in the world in my lifetime, who's killed more American soldiers than any other regime in my lifetime, that's a fact. And a country that declares over and over again, they want to kill you. If they get a nuclear weapon and we did appeasement, which is what Obama did and what Biden did, and you just stuck with that. And then one day they get the bomb

and then they put it out in the world and they blow up a city. How do you do the math on that one? Because you keep acting like America's doing something evil here, when all we're doing is trusting the terrorists when they say they want to kill you and they keep doing it Then if they get bigger weapons and they get ballistic missiles, they're gonna use them which by the way they already have

I mean, there's just so many just ridiculous presumptions built into that question You literally ask a question I get three words out to respond to it and you're already interrupting.

But you said there's so many ridiculous things I said. I asked you one question about a nuclear weapon. It's not a ridiculous list.

Yes, it is. Do I get a chance to talk now or do you just wanna ask questions to yourself? Is this just pretend?

Please explain.

Are you actually asking? Not a hard question, Dave. That's the point I'm making. How do you do a calculus on Iran getting a nuclear weapon? That is not a list of things.

This is literally, this is why I didn't want to do it with Ben Alshapiro, because this is just how he debates. It's just, I can't answer or you won't shut up.

Which one is it? I asked really obvious tough questions.

I apologize.

All right, Ben, everyone can see through this tactic. Everyone can see through it. First of all, the intelligence going... Not smart people.

There you go.

Yeah, yeah.

Every one of them can see through this bullshit. OK, so the intelligence that we had leading into the 12-day war, which was right there in the annual threat assessment, which Tulsi Gabbard testified under oath in Congress, Congress was that Iran had not made the political decision to start developing nuclear weapons yet. And so now you've got it as if we do nothing. Not only do they have deliverable nuclear weapons, but they've used them offensively,

which no country. Yes, you did. Which no country in the history of the world.

I said they had 60 percent.

60 percent is not a nuclear weapon. Dave, go back and listen to what I said. 60 percent is not a nuclear weapon, Dave. Go back and listen to what I said. 60% is not a nuclear weapon. That is not what I said. This is why I interrupt you because you make up shit that I never said. I never said they had a nuclear weapon. I use the word if and close.

OK. Honestly, I'll just if you want to let me speak, I will. Anyone can go back and listen to what you just said. I'm not claiming you said 60%. Yes, please rewind it on YouTube. Pierce, do you remember the part where he said, and then they detonated a nuclear bomb

over a city?

Do you remember that? I think I said, Dave, everyone can rewind it on YouTube.

This is just so stupid, dude.

That was Switzerland right there, my friend. It's a bit like when Marco Rubio said, actually, the reason we preemptively attack was because we'd heard the Israelis were going to go in. So we thought we'd better get in before retaliation came. And the next day we were told that he hadn't said what we'd heard with his own

mouth.

There you go, Ben, you just did it again. So anyway, the point is that, look, and as I've made this point before on your show here, Pierce, I mean, this is just like even the argument here, look, Look, we sat by the United States of America while Joseph Stalin developed nuclear weapons and we knew he was doing it. While Mao Zedong developed nuclear weapons and we knew that he was doing it.

These are the most evil people who have ever lived. We didn't launch a war of aggression to stop them. Now that doesn't mean you don't pursue diplomatic goals here. But to say Obama, and listen, Obama and Joe Biden had horrible foreign policies in a million different ways. But it's not true that appeasement didn't work.

They had a deal. If 60% enriched uranium was the big concern, well, Iran was down to like 3% enriched uranium until Donald Trump tore it up. Now there were sunset provisions in the JCPOA, and perhaps it would have been better

to try to strengthen them to try to come up with a better deal here. But instead, at the behest of the Israelis, Donald Trump insisted on these ridiculous negotiating strategies, this no enriched uranium at all, no civilian nuclear program, no intercontinental ballistic missiles, no supporting Hezbollah or Hamas or any of this. And this is never going to lead to a deal.

Yeah, that's a good thing a deal support a terrorist organization well it's not think that you think we should allow that

great thing it's not such a great thing when it leads to this now is it Ben the point of

debate destruction Ben Ben Ben Ben if he just said that we should allow Iran to sponsor terrorist organizations Ben Ben if you just said we should allow them in the deal to like sponsor Hamas and Hezbollah, Ben, like what the hell world are we living in? Let me ask you a question.

Ben, if you're the terrorist, Ben, if your position is that if a nation espouses a desire to wipe out another country, then the country on the receiving end has an absolute right to not just defend itself but attack the country threatening them, right? That's

the defense for, right? I think it also has to be based on do they have the ability to do this. So assuming ability. So are they trying to get the ability to do it?

So here's my question. So when the president of a country says publicly that he is going to, well, I'll read it again, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want it to happen, but it probably will. When a president of a country says that, presumably by your definition, Iran would now be perfectly entitled to attack the United States.

I think Iran's already been attacking the United States of America. That's why we're in this conversation right now.

They've killed more American soldiers than anybody else in the world. If they wanted to attack mainland America, they wanted to attack mainland America by your criteria, they would have an absolute moral justification because you have a nation

in America. I'm not going to say it's a moral justification, what I'm saying is, and I'll go back to what I said earlier, the President of the United States of America said to them, you need to make this deal and open up the Strait of Hormuz. This is all about land that's not actually theirs, and you're not going to hold the world hostage.

And if you do, continue to hold us hostage. I am going to take out your bridges and your electricity, and that's on you. That is completely different than the scenario that you're asking. By the way, I wish you'd ask Dave the same question I asked him earlier. If they get a nuclear weapon and then detonated it somewhere in the world, how do you do that calculation? Wait, hold on, hold on. You still haven't answered the question yet.

But you didn't say that.

That's what I said.

But you didn't say that they out a city around the world?

Thank you.

That's exactly what I said.

Thank you, Pierce, for being honest.

That's what I was claiming that you said, that you denied last time. You interrupted me when I said you were making that claim and said you never said that.

No, I said they didn't have the bomb. How do you make the calculus? And you haven't answered that question yet because you don't know how to answer it. Your foreign policy is fraud, Dave. Your foreign policy is bury your head in the sand, bother no one, and then no one bothers you. And when you're dealing with terrorists, that never works. 9-11 is a great example of that, by the way.

We were literally burying our head in the sand, acting like Osama bin Laden was not a threat after he kept saying he wanted to take out America, he wanted to go after America. And every president did the same thing. They buried their hand in the sand and they said, we're not going to deal with him right now.

We'll leave him alone.

We won't be a war to the Middle East.

Let me ask you this Ben.

This is so ridiculous and ahistorical. Ben, Ben, what's interesting? America was just not intervening. interventionist until 9-11? Yeah, right, please. We were bombing Iraq. We had a sanctions regime around Iraq. We had military bases in Saudi Arabia. And by the way, every one of the things

that the terrorists objected to were interventions. When 9-11 happened, what were we doing in the Middle East? Nothing. We were doing nothing when 9-11 happened in the Middle East. We were not. You don't know what you're talking about. The UN estimated- about the UN. Were we invading a country in Iran on 9-11? No. Can I finish the sentence? Or are you just going to interrupt? The answer is no. We were asleep at the wheel on 9-11. There's a reason why John Ashcroft wrote a book called Never Again, because we were so

asleep at the wheel that we realized afterwards we can never allow it to happen again.

When Madeline Albright was asked about how the UN had estimated that 500,000 children had died of starvation and malnutrition due to the Clinton blockade around Iraq. She said, and I quote, that price is worth it. These were the non-interventionist years of peace and prosperity.

1990 what? 92, 93, 94, we're talking about 2001. That's a long ways off, bro. I said, what were we doing when 9-11 happened in the Middle East? In the Middle East on 9-11.

Try 1998.

You're talking about almost two decades earlier.

No, I'm talking about three years earlier. You don't know what you're talking about.

You said that Madeline Albright said that in the early 90s. You just said 90s on the show. No, I didn't say that. 1990s on the show. 2001 is when 9-11 happened, am I wrong? 1998 is when she made the comment. It was all through the Clinton years. Bill Clinton

stopped being president in the year 2000, one year before 9-11. Sorry, this is just

math, Ben.

So you're saying that the blockade of food is what caused 9-11 now?

No, I'm not saying it. Osama bin Laden himself listed it as one of his stated grievances along with the military bases.

One of a list that was like the Unabomber's list.

Yes, that also involved the US military bases on Holy Land in Saudi Arabia and US support for brutal regimes that oppress Muslims in the region and US support for the Israelis who have been occupying at that time for 30 plus years, the Palestinian territory. Yes, this is basic history. You can say I'm a fraud, but you don't know any of this.

Hold on, hold on.

You don't know any of this. So I'm correct in saying that your foreign policy is bury your head in the sand and hope that no one bothers you based on what you just said. Because you're saying any time we stand up for us in the world, that immediately it's going to be our fault when we get attacked. That is your foreign policy.

Instead of you saying it, why don't I just say what I actually believe? What I believe is that we don't launch wars of aggression, wars of choice, reckless wars against countries that don't pose a threat to us. I'm defending the just war theory of Christianity and the constitutional system that the framers laid out.

If we do have to go to war, there should be a vote in Congress. Okay, so here's my question. To every American that's watching that has lost a loved one at the hands of Iran, you're now telling them when they go to their graves on Memorial Day that Iran was not a threat to the United States of America as you just described it, and who gives a crap that those American soldiers were killed at the hands of Iran and the terrorist regimes that they aid, sponsor, support and give free passage to.

Here's a good rule of thumb here, Ben. If I didn't say it and then you just say you're saying it. No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that we're going to get said, no, I didn't say any of that. Yes, that's right.

That part I said correct. So to the American families who've lost loved ones in a uniform who were killed at the hands of the Iranians and their and their terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah and ISIS and others they gave safe passes to you're telling me that Iran was not involved in the murder of those American soldiers. They killed more American soldiers than any other regime in the world. Ben, I'm sorry. I know I'm a fraud and I don't know a lot

about foreign policy. Did you just say that ISIS is an Iranian proxy? I said that they

knew that ISIS was given safe passage to cross through at some points in the past. Yes, that's a fact. They're a proxy of the Iranians. I said proxies and including places like ISIS. Yes, they get along so well. I'm going to go back to asking the simple question I asked you a second ago. If you are American and your loved one was killed at the hands of the Iranian regime and they're terrorist proxies, you're telling me and you want to look at those families in the face and say Iran is not a threat to the United States of America or our soldiers, even though their loved one died at the hands of the Iranian regime.

OK, all I ask is that you allow me to answer that question since you've asked it now. Is that cool?

It's a yes or no, but go.

No, it's not a yes or no. I'll give you the answer. It sure is. My answer to all of those families would be, if you had listened to people like me, people like Ron Paul, people like Pat Buchanan, our troops never would have been in Lebanon or in Iraq to begin with and your loved ones would still be with you. But instead you listen to the foreign policy of people like you, Ben, and that's why we were involved in those conflicts to begin with.

Iran poses no threat to the United States of America, meaning the middle part of North America. Yet, does Iran pose a threat to our ability to occupy Iraq? Well, actually, we were kind of on the side of the most Iran-linked militia groups at the time. But yeah, there was some fighting with some Shiites in there, too. It was another disastrous war that Piers Morgan was correct to oppose.

And none of those boys would have been killed if they had listened to people like Piers.

So Piers, let's be clear. Dave Smith's foreign policy is the only foreign policy in the world where American troops would never be killed. Glad we summed that up. Like everybody go home.

No, if you're talking about the ones in Iraq, the ones in Iraq, you just straw man every single thing I say and then claim I said something different.

No, because you have Americans that died at the hands of the Iranians and you're acting like it was their fault that the United States had their country. You know one thing, let me just jump in.

One thing's for sure, there will be more rewinding of this debate than in the history of Piers Morgan uncensors. There's gonna be frantic rewire every time one of you says, I didn't say that, there's gonna be a million people going, I already did. Get a counter and put it on social media. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. The beauty of an unsensitive YouTube channel is it's all there for posterity.

Let me just, before we finish, I want to just bring up the fascinating kind of split that's going on on the Republican side about this war. It's been bubbling away on other issues, but now it's really exploded here, Ben. And I want to play the clip from Tucker Carlson that he really delivered the most astonishing rebuke directly to Donald Trump.

Let's listen to this.

No, this is a mockery, not just of Islam, it's a mockery of Christianity. To send out a tweet with the F word on Easter morning, promising the murder of civilians and then saying praise be to Allah without explaining any of it

You are mocking me and every other Christian because we're Christians. We can't support that that is evil That is an intentional desecration of beauty and truth, which is the definition of evil

Now I can remember a time Ben Ferguson when you would probably wholeheartedly endorse that statement But you can't now because you do a podcast with Ted Cruz. He hates Tucker, says he's evil. And so you're trapped really between probably I don't agree with.

I've never heard you use the F word on air. I don't think you would. Right. I think I think you would agree that on Easter on Easter Sunday, saying what Trump said would be outrageous and disgraceful. But I'm not sure you're going to say it now, are you?

I will tell you exactly why I think the president put out that tweet. I think he realized just how evil the Iranian regime is. He was really angry and upset that they went after two of our pilots and he had to work so hard to get them back and put other people's lives at risk. He's in the Situation Room. He's seeing what's happening. He's watching how tough that was.

He's also really pissed off that you had a leak, that there was a second pilot down that came from the US that then put his life in danger. And if I was the president of the United States of America, Piers, in that moment, I'd probably drop an F-bomb too

if we're being intellectually honest. Okay, why don't you repeat right now exactly what he said. I'm not one to drop F-bombs just to drop F-bombs on TV. Like that's not who I am.

And you finish it.

Sorry, that's not my guy.

No, you know what? You wouldn't say it, Ben. You wouldn't say it because you know it's inappropriate. And you certainly wouldn't have said it on Easter Sunday.

Piers, when I was in a shooting and I was the target of a gang initiation, and when I came home, you better believe I dropped the F-bomb for the very first time in front

of my parents.

But you wouldn't say it on air?

I don't know.

That day probably.

No, you wouldn't.

I've never heard you do it on air. I probably, I say that in court. I, if I'm the president of the United States of America in that moment, and I'm trying to get Americans back, I would hope the F bomb would bubble up in your mind a little bit. I really do.

I mean, he cares. Can I just say, I listen, by the way, it's just such of like the shit talking comedian and Ben's the suit and tie conservative guy and who Ben when he was supporting Ted Cruz in the 2016 primary would have been just like all the other conservatives saying like Donald Trump is too vulgar and unserious and all of this stuff. And I'm telling you as me, someone who will drop F bombs on almost every podcast that I'm on.

It's not even just a matter of will you say the word. Great. It's not a matter of, will you say the word? Should the president of the United States of America on Easter while he's talking about a war that innocent people are dying in and then mocking Allah? I'm sorry, man.

And I know Ben, you're just like, you're boxed in to just not say the obvious. It is disgusting. It's not boxed in. I gave you my explanation why I think he said it. It's an embarrassment. It's not an embarrassment.

You just don't like the explanation. The president just got back two American soldiers that were shot down. The president on Easter, he got them killed.

To me, Ben, there's a middle ground. You don't have to go full talk.

Hold on. Did you just accuse Donald Trump of getting two pilots shot down? Yes, by launching this stupid war. Okay, here, here. If all of the death is on hand. This is why people, Dave, think you're an asshole.

For that exactly right there. What do you mean people think this?

You don't blame terrorists. You don't blame terrorists when they do things. You only blame the United States of America, which goes back to the point, I genuinely think you you hate America by default. Like you just blame the president for terrorists going after our guys.

Sure.

That's when they say you hate America. You actually hate America.

Hey Ben, let me ask you a question. Let's say that our government did become something that you would consider a terrorist regime. Let's say like real Nazis took over the United States of America. Okay. So hypothetically thought experiment and they started doing Nazi stuff. They were really terrorists, whatever you would define that to be, which you never really define it.

I'm in favor of the Second Amendment. I'm tracking it.

Let's say, me too. Okay, so let's say they, real terrorists take over the American government and now the government's doing real terrorist stuff. If I were to call them terrorists,

does that mean I hate America? I think you're calling the American government a terrorist organization with facts. If you're talking about the way you are, that's with evidence. So the debate, right, right. You're not, there's no evidence here on what you just claimed that Donald Trump

got them shot down. That's completely different than Nazis. You should be intellectually honest enough to have that. Those are two very different things. Is Donald Trump a Nazi now? Is that what you're saying? Is Donald Trump a Nazi? Is that what you're saying?

No, I don't think you can follow a logical analogy here.

It's one hell of an analogy, my friend. You're like, well, Donald Trump's the reason why they got shot down. Let's blame Donald Trump. I think that's anti-American. I think the president going after the terrorist regime is always a good thing. Again, I'll just, I'll take the people with IQs above 90 who understand the logical analogy

I was just making.

But Ben, for you to sit there and say, keep interrupting. You're losing an argument when you have to go after my IQ, which is above that, by the

way.

But like, come on. Okay, keep interrupting. No, I'm not, I can have above a 90 IQ, bro. No, actually you can't, because I'm implying that only people with a 90 IQ would believe your line of bullshit. Nothing about your IQ was implied there, actually. But anyway, you want to say, this is why the people think I'm an asshole.

Okay, again, like I said with Adam, man, let's see what the response from the people is. This is why the people think you debate in a really dishonest way.

Okay. debate in a really dishonest way. Okay, you know what? That is the idea. That is a perfect way to end because we will let the people decide. I got a feeling that Ben will fare a little better with the people than Adam.

Better than Adam for sure.

The bar was extremely low.

The bar was extremely low. That's a low bar, Piers. Let's raise that up a little bit.

The bar was very low. And you will get credit for failing the empty chair at the very least. So look, I enjoyed that debate. Thank you both very much. I'm disappointed, Ben, in your coarse language of calling Dave an asshole after your moralistic position about the F word, but we can move on.

I said that's why people think he's an asshole. That's what I said. I said think. I said think. Let's be clear what I said. I said this is why people think you're an asshole.

Guys, I gotta leave it there. I appreciate you both doing this. Thank you very much.

Good to see you, Pierce. Thanks, Pierce.

Dave, take it easy, Ben.

Well, joining me now is Jack Card, a former US Navy SEAL, creator of The Terminal List and also the hotly anticipated new book, The Fourth Option. Jack, welcome to our session. Thank you so much for having me on.

Great to see you.

Did America win this war?

Well, it appears we're still in one. A ceasefire doesn't mean that everything has stopped. And I know the president is very, let's say, strategically ambiguous in his tweets. And we can see that going back to the beginning of Twitter and then into X, of course. So this is just a pause, I think,

to give us some breathing room, give the Iranians some breathing room, find out how many layers down we've gone in that leadership pyramid. And we found someone to negotiate with. And if we have, how long is that person going to be in power? Do they have the control of military

and the internal security apparatus? And do the other people around him also support him negotiating with the United States? So a lot of questions, of course, out there right now, but it seems like this is a time to take a breath for us to continue to develop our intelligence,

to assess that intelligence, to rack and stack our target deck if and when the ceasefire breaks or we commence hostilities, that now we can really be more effective and efficient in our strikes to try to coerce that regime to our will. So that is a very long way of saying that I do not know.

I know you're good friends with Pete Hagseth. I used to know Pete when we worked together at Fox. He was saying today is a big historic victory. And he specifically said from a military perspective that on the battlefield, it had been an overwhelming victory. And I responded on a post on X saying,

yeah, I think, you know, indisputably, America and Israel have won the battlefield part of this to date with overwhelming firepower superiority. But the problem is there's been a sort of asymmetric second war going on on the water through the Strait of Hormuz, or rather nothing's been going through the Strait of Hormuz,

and the Iranians have realized this has been a very powerful weapon which has caused enormous global economic damage. And there's a very interesting piece, which has caused enormous global economic damage. And there's a very interesting piece in the New York Times outlining the whole kind of background to how this decision was taken to go to war, in which it's quite clear that the Israelis and their intelligence, their Mossad guys, had determined that if you decapitated the top of the regime, the Ayatollah and the other leading people,

then there would be an uprising by the people and there would also be no chance of them still being able to close the Strait of Hormuz. So it would appear that there's been a massive miscalculation here about that part of this. Would you agree? Yeah, it's interesting. The

Strait of Hormuz part is puzzling because we can go back not that far in history to the 80s, to the tanker war and traffic going through the straight-of-horse-moves there. That, of course, lasted over a year. It was very costly. So we have that. That's not that long ago. But we're obviously we're not very good at looking at past history and drawing the correct lessons. We can draw some lessons, but oftentimes they're not the right ones.

Like going into Afghanistan in 2001, we could have looked back to the Soviet experience, 1979 to 89. That was only a little over a decade prior. We drew the wrong lessons from that. We didn't have to go back to the three British incursions.

We didn't have to go back to Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan. We had a very recent experience. And that tanker war in the 80s is another one. So it is puzzling to me the way that that has played out here, because it is such an obvious move by the Iranians and something that should have been part of the planning process. And maybe things happen in war, and there are a lot of variables that can't be controlled, obviously, and there are unintended consequences. There are second-throw effects.

But this seemed one that should have been at the top of our planning process, how to deal with that strait being closed. And for them to be able to put that kind of economic pressure on the global infrastructure, because everything's so interconnected these days, that's an obvious thing to have happen, which is, I think, how we pivoted towards talking about attacking the Iranian economy,

as military targets to see if we could put that kind of pressure on the regime or what's left of the regime to coerce them to our will. And I don't know if that's, you know how that, obviously, we don't know how that's gonna play out,

but I think that was the next right there. But also, we're not dealing with other, let's say, Americans across the table in a negotiation. And does the regime not mind putting their country into further poverty? And something that might work with an American,

not necessarily will work with the Iranian, Persian, different history, different culture. And I'm reminded of a story actually from Afghanistan. I know they're different cultures, but the point is that it's not a mirror image of us if we're in a good.

And I heard it was Aaron McLean. He's talking about being in Afghanistan, sitting down with the Taliban commander, having tea and saying, hey, don't you want this war to end? Don't you want your son over here, who's right here, who's 10 years old, to be able to go to university, become a lawyer, become a doctor?

And that Taliban commander said, my son's gonna be dead in a year fighting the Jihad. And that is a different way of looking at the world.

Yeah, and he would be proud of that. And would think that giving your life, even as a young child, for your country and your cause

was a price worth paying. Exactly. And that's the point of that is I know they're different cultures, but it's that mirror image. And we do that over and over again. We we put into our enemy to the person we're negotiating with. And we assume that they value the same things that we do when we might be ideologically opposed. And you might be dealing with someone who is a

or a group of people who are, in this case, a little more

fanatical.

The problem, it seems to me, Jack, I mean, I'd imagine as a Navy SEAL, the one thing you want to know when you're going into an operation is, well, what's the end game? What are we trying to achieve? So that when you achieve it, everyone is crystal clear what has been achieved and what victory looks like. What you don't want, I would imagine, and you can put words in your mouth, but it seemed to me here the goalposts kept changing so often in those first few days that it was

very hard to work out what victory would look like. So now everyone is claiming victory. The Americans are claiming victory. The Israelis are claiming victory. The Iranians are claiming victory. Everyone thinks they've won. And in a way, everybody has won part of this, right? But there's no clear, like, we started here with this mission and we've achieved it and we're exiting. It's become a lot messier. And I just imagine from the military point of view,

it's deeply unsatisfactory, isn't it?

Well, there's the negotiation start. Before the start of the war, there was those things we wanted out of negotiations. Then obviously no nuclear weapons, no ballistic missile capability and no support of proxy terrorist groups, namely Hezbollah.

So those are those three main negotiating points on the table. Couldn't get there, met and six weeks ago as someone who, anyway, it made me sad to see that. I mean, diplomacy failed, mean any upstream disruption operations type of thing failed on the intelligence side of the house, mean covert action failed to achieve those things.

So everything failed and now we go to war. So that made me sad right there. So now we switch to war aims and goals of the war fighter and the military apparatus, which are different that we were negotiating for. So then they're very clearly articulated this morning. I saw one of our generals up there talking about

how they were tasked to destroy the Iranian Navy, to degrade or destroy their ballistic missile and drone capability, and to hit or totally dismantle their military industrial base. So that was the military side of the house.

And then there's still those diplomacy things that we're looking at, those three goals of diplomacy. But added to that now, as you mentioned earlier, is the straight-up war moves. Obviously, that's having an effect across the entire world at the moment. So things do change, goalposts change. But for that guy on the ground, they're focused on the mission. And these days, of course, you're getting X, and you're getting social, and you're getting all these inputs that the guys didn't have during World War II. And so it is a little bit different,

because foreign entities can now use those platforms in order to manipulate. It's a tool. Any tool can be used as a weapon. So for the guys and the women who are in this fight right now, they just need to stay focused on the task

at hand so they are not too worried about all these other things, all these other inputs. They have to be at the top of their game. That people's lives depend on them focusing on the mission. So that's where their focus is right now.

As an American, Jack, you served his country obviously with great valor. As an American, how do you feel? A lot of Americans are saying this is not what we thought we'd get with President Trump. He campaigned to stop taking the country into these wars in the Middle East. He felt they were ruinous financially on human life and so on. And yet here he is going into the biggest one imaginable against Iran.

And it's all got very messy. And there's a lot of disaffected Americans speaking up now saying, well, this isn't what I wanted from Trump. I wanted him to focus on America first, sorting out our problems in our country. Do you feel that way? Do you understand why they feel that way?

I really understand it. And we thought about that over the years in Iraq and Afghanistan, seeing those generals sit in front of Congress and essentially say the same thing year after year. The name tag changed. But what they said was essentially the same. We need more time. We need more money. We the our host nation forces are getting better.

They're making progress. And this just extended that war for 20 years. At the beginning when I got there, I thought I just made it. We all wanted to be there right after September 11th. And if you weren't there right after September 11th, you thought you were going to miss it because we thought it was going to be such a quick, a quick war. We didn't think we were going to stay there for 20 years. We keep changing and we'll do this nation building, and then we'll do this anti-drug campaign, the anti-corruption campaigns. We're going to build these roads and all these things.

So to see us go back in like this is like, oh my goodness, I thought we were past all this, but then at the same time, I'm not sure how long do you. The other side of that is, well, okay. I wrote a book on Beirut called Targeted Beirut 1983 because it was such a pivotal year in our relationship with the Middle East and with Iran specifically because they learned

from hitting our Marines, our peacekeepers that were in Beirut in 1983, they learned that terrorism works and it works through proxies because there was a lot of tough talk out of the administration in 1983 and then we left about as quietly as you can in early 1984. So that taught Iran something but it taught super empowered individuals, it taught terrorist organizations, it taught host nations, it taught nation states

that same lesson. Terrorism works and it works even better through proxies. So I think about what if we had responded a little bit differently back then? What would the enemy have learned? What would Iran have learned from a more kinetic response, more direct response back then. What would the enemy have learned? What would Iran have learned from a more kinetic

response, more direct response back then? Or take it back to 1979, to our hostages that were held for over a year. I remember Walter Cronkite counting up those days with my family on the news every single night, and as a young kid wondering why we hadn't done something as a country. How can all these Americans be, aren't we the most powerful country in the world? That's what I thought. And so that was very impactful, as was the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing and the embassy bombing the April before that, but very little response. It seems like there's an acceptable level of violence out there, both for us and

the Israelis. And it changes based on the geopolitics of the time, based on who's in the administration. A lot of factors there. But it seems like there's this acceptable level of violence. Our bombings in Tanzania, in Kenya, not much of a response there. We have the Kobar Towers, we have USS Cole,

not much of a response, but then we have 9-11. That's a not acceptable level of violence. October 7th, a not acceptable level of violence. It seems like over the years we could have taught the enemy a different lesson with a different response.

So maybe this is just a long time coming.

Fascinating. Jack Carr, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

Thank you for having me.

Take care.

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