Why Trump's SCARED SH*TLESS Of Netanyahu

Israel has struck Iran's South Pass gas field. They have killed the intelligence minister. They've launched some of the most intense strikes, both in Iran and in Lebanon. Iran has retaliated by launching missiles against oil and gas facilities, including overnight, across Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In an extraordinary Truth Social post late last night, Donald Trump promised that Israel wouldn't carry out any further attacks on energy infrastructure

and demanded that Iran pledged to do the same. And he threatened that if Iranian strikes on Qatari oil fields, the South Pass oil fields continue, America will quote, "'massively blow up the entirety of the South Pass.'" Gas field, Donald Trump is saying that he didn't know about the Israeli attacks on Iranian energy,

but all of the reporting in Washington is that he did know about it, and people in the security world that I've spoken to said there is no way that Israel would have launched those attacks without CENTCOM knowing about it. We know that Donald Trump doesn't always tell the truth, and I reckon that he did know about these strikes, but he puts out a Truth Social's post saying he didn't know anything about them. If we are drifting into quagmire territory, what are Donald Trump's options right now?

Apart from kind of saying this is all the Israelis' fault, which is what he seems to have been saying overnight. So he did this to UN ambassador Nikki Haley in the first term. He said, go out and say X, Y, Z. She went out and said it. It blew back on him. He said he never told her to say it. And he criticized her. She went on the Sunday shows to say, no, no, he totally told me to do this.

And so he does this. He absolutely puts people out

there. They tell the truth and then he says they're lying. It's very consistent with what he does. So I'm going to believe that it's also consistent with what he would do to the Israelis right now because as you and I have reported on this show, he is flummoxed by a couple of things. He's flummoxed by the divergence of interest, which you and I have reported.

Between Israel and Iran, you mean?

Meaning he didn't want to kill all those guys, they got killed by the Israelis. Yeah. He didn't want to bomb certain areas, they bombed them anyway. And I think he's flummoxed by this. He doesn't understand why he doesn't have more control over the Israeli military. And so that's number one.

Number two, he gives everybody a tell, guys. So let's talk about the tell. I did not think that they were going to attack the Gulf states. He said that the other day in the room, and he said it twice actually. He said it again with the Irish PM who I thought did a really good job, Catty. He handled Trump about as well as anybody

could handle Trump in terms of deflecting him, stating some European values and getting out of the room without getting scarred. Making the case for immigration. Making the case for immigration and getting out of the room without getting scarred by Trump. So he did really well. But on this topic, this is very important for people because I want to give everybody what I know. And what I know is Trump is furious. Lindsey Graham has told you that. What I know is Trump cannot believe that his luck has run out in Iran. Trump cannot believe that they hit back

as hard as they hit back. He cannot believe that he may have to deploy ground troops. You know this and I know this, the US Marines, there's a 2200 Marine Expeditionary Force heading to the Middle East. And the military strategists are telling Trump,

you're gonna have to drop those guys off by the Strait of Hormuz on the eastern side of the strait where the Iranians are and you're going to have to dig in and you're going to have to blow the Iranians back at least 50 miles off the strait so that you can make sure that anything that they're going to try to put into the strait can't get manually put into the strait. Okay, so that's on the table now.

Okay, so people need to be aware of that. They're probably not there yet.

The force is moving from the Japan area, which means that forces are now being taken away from other hotspots around the world into the Middle East as well.

Yeah, the Japanese are not in love with that because they have a security agreement with us. Yeah, the Japanese are not in love with that because they have a security agreement with us and obviously the boats are circling Taiwan, which is quote unquote war games by the Chinese, but you know, the Chinese have said repeatedly and Xi has said quietly that, you know, he wants to be bigger than Mao

and the way you become bigger than Mao is you reconnect the island of Formosa, Taiwan, you reconnect it to the mainland, something that Mao could not do. Okay, so last point, Cady, I love your reaction to this. Did the death of Khomeini Senior, did it create the opposite effect of what Trump wanted?

What do you mean?

I'll give you my point. I think killing off the Supreme Leader on February 28th has caused way more problems than it was going to solve. I think they had a kill switch. He dies, we're in a death call together. Here are the 25 things that we're going to do if the Israelis or the Americans take out the supreme leader. And my question to American intelligence people and the Mossad, you guys didn't know that? Trump said, and you know this, Cady, Trump said, hey, if they take

me out, there's a whole list of things here that my people are sworn to do in my absence. You don't

think the Supreme Leader had that? Yeah, they've been planning this for years. And that's why we're seeing this retaliation. There's two things going on. One is that the Israelis are going after all of the leadership that they can. There's amazing reporting by the Wall Street Journal detailing how much intelligence they have inside Iran. If you haven't seen the TV show, Tehran, watch it because this all feels very real and very relevant right now. That Wall Street Journal article, we'll put a link to it in our newsletter.

They have got very good inside sources on what the intel is in Israel and how they are going after this leadership. And the implication of the Wall Street Journal's reporting is that they're going down, systematically down, right down to the kind of local police level, in order to try and create the circumstances that Donald Trump has wanted all along that would allow the Iranian population to rise

up. But at the same time, we're getting reports today that there have been more hangings in Tehran and more people have been shot for going out on the streets. So there's enough of a security apparatus still in position in Tehran to stop any prospect of an uprising at the moment. But at the moment, the thinking is that's in Israel. The thinking is that's what they're still trying to ferment. I am under the impression that in the White House, the reporting is what I've heard is they've given up on that idea. They've given up on the idea

that there's going to be an uprising, which is what Donald Trump went into this hoping that there would be. And so that was why they wanted to get rid of this leadership. And they didn't

understand how deep this bench went and what those kill switches were. But what the White House would like, they will never say this in public, but this is what they want. They want Iran to come back to the negotiating table and they want to negotiate the terms and conditions of an end to this, which would include keeping the Straits of Hormuz open and keeping them open in the long term,

not just for a week or two. They're not going to say that publicly because for Donald Trump, that feels like weakness and backing down. but that's actually where the negotiations are heading at the moment. The problem is that's not what the Israelis want, which is why you're getting this now public divergence, which we've reported on before. What I'm told by reporters who cover this much more closely than I do in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem,

and they say, well, actually what Bibi wants is for this to go on forever, because this is the way he gets out of an investigation into what happened around October the 7th, around his corruption. Once this war is over, he is out of power and potentially in prison. So there's a real split now between Israel's needs and Trump's needs. Here we are Thursday the 19th. What are we, 20 days into this, and I'm picking up in Washington overnight because of these attacks on the oil fields and the LNG fields and what that means for the energy markets, I'm picking up real panic here in Washington that Trump has lost control of this and we've headed into

quagmire territory and they don't know how to get out of this. The window for getting out of this and being able to claim a plausible victory has now closed. How do the markets respond to what's happened overnight? How does the economy respond to what's happened overnight? Is there any way do you think that Donald Trump can now end this and claim victory? Or is the long term ramifications of the energy crisis now has made that impossible for him?

Okay, so let's just be candid with everybody. There's really no victory here because you're not going to get what Trump wanted. I think you did get what Bibi wanted, Prime Minister Netanyahu, which is you have a decimation of forces. You set these guys back five to 10 years. There's a quagmire that could potentially go on to your point where he stays in power.

And so Bibi Netanyahu has secured the objectives that he wanted. But I think if I was in the situation room with Donald Trump, my question to him would be define winning. Take a deep breath. Give me two or three sentences on what winning means to you. And I don't think the president actually knows the answer to that. No And I don't think the president actually knows the answer to that.

No, I don't think he can do that.

He's all over the place. Okay, Mark Warner said, you know, we've seen the goals for the operation change four or five times now. Okay, that's Democrat, senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Okay, Hegseth says that he's ending a 47 year war, you know, and General Kane has said, hey, if we do, if we do X, Y, Z, the following can happen, which is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. And Hegseth and Trump said, hey, no, that doesn't fit the Fox News script of how this is going to go down. So we're going to force this anyway.

Okay. And so he doesn't have any stated objectives, right? This is the problem and he's dangerous in a situation like this because I'm going to land based our allies and I'm going to excoriate them and threaten to take over land that is in the territorial domain of one of our allies. And I'm going to do that in January and then I'm going to launch a war in the Middle East unilaterally in late February.

Then I'm going to go to our allies and say, hey, what are you guys doing? Come on over here. I need your help over here. And I just want to thank European leadership because if I were advising European leaders, I'm an American, I want our troops to win. I want the president to get out of this.

Obviously I'm an American and I'm a patriot, but I also don't want a global war, Cady. And so if someone asked me for advice, I said, guys, you cannot get involved with this. You do not want this to lead to World War III. You cannot get involved with this. The Chinese have showed levels of restraint. The Russians are doing what the Russians are doing, which is sticking

it up. You know why Trump's yin-yang, we know that. Okay, but to me, I am very proud of the Europeans. Why are you laughing? I mean, you don't use the word yin-yang in your family? I mean, it's better than using the bad word. I don't use bad words on this podcast, Katty Kay, OK? Katty Kay uses bad words.

I have heard you very many times using bad words. That sounds like your sons Nick and James would say up the yin yang. That's like a 10-year-old says that.

But anyway, yes.

All right. The Russians are doing that to Trump and he is afraid of them. I don't know why. Okay. But here's the last thing, Cady. I have a very high expectation that this escalates. Yes. And people who are running money out there or allocating capital, you have to assume this is escalating and you have to assume he's putting ground troops down on the ground.

And I think this is going to be underappreciated by many how bad this is going to be because the Iranians are going to make a statement, Cady, and you can agree or disagree. But I think the Iranians understand Trump better than he understands the Iranians or anybody on his staff understands the Iranians. And I think they're waiting for those troops and it's going to be ugly.

I think you're right and I think this does escalate because I think the window for de-escalation has shut as we just said. I keep thinking back to the series that we're doing for our founding members on Trump and his origins and really looking at his psychology because everything we are seeing play out today has been there forever. This is about who Trump is. This is about a guy, as we have already said on the program, who lies. He has a godlike belief in his own ability to get things right. He is the only one who could do this. Past presidents have been weak and he is the only one who could do this. He refuses to admit mistakes or weakness.

So when his advisors came to him and said they might close the Straits of Hormuz, it's almost like it's personal. They are not going to do that to Donald J. Trump because I am stronger than they are. The American military is stronger than they are. We're going to have victory even though you people in the intelligence community are telling me that this is what is going to happen. I know better. I mean, it's a real case of I know better.

He went into this thinking, I know better. I can do this. I don't make mistakes. And then when something goes wrong, he just changes the narrative. And I think he is facing a real crunch right now because things are going wrong in exactly the way he hates. They're going wrong in the markets. They're going wrong in

the oil prices. They're going wrong in inflation. All of the indicators that actually he does care about are moving in the wrong direction for him. All of the polling is moving in the wrong direction for him. And however much Stephen Miller goes on Fox News and says, President Trump has calculated through every permutation and every degree of strategy,

increasingly nobody believes that. And I think that's a real problem for him. And as you said, the Iranians have far more leverage. It doesn't take them much to keep the Straits of Hormuz shut for quite a lot longer. This war could be the undoing of Donald Trump.

And I think he realizes that and people around him realize that. And it's causing a huge amount of disquiet here in Washington right now, as well as on the global markets, obviously.

So I want to analyze this for people.

I don't want to be overly, you know, overly dramatic about this,

but I think this is a turning point in his legacy. No, there's a way out of this. They could go back to Oman. What we do know about wars is that wars do end, you know, some last 30 years, but wars do end. And so there is a way out of this. The question is, for Donald Trump and his hyper masculinity and his over launched overbite of bravado, is he going to be able to handle that? And the short answer is he's got nobody around him that's coaching him in that direction. Okay, so that's the danger.

He says, I'll know it in my bones when this war is over.

Yeah, great.

Which is very reassuring. That's very helpful.

He knows he alone can solve this. He can do whatever he wants.

But can I ask you something about that quickly? And then I also want to talk about US and Israel because you mentioned how this is what Bibi wanted. I think this is terrible for America's relationship with Israel going forward. And there is dramatic polling on that. I want to talk about that in a second. But quickly, before we get there, I wanted to ask you, yes, he can go back to Oman and basically be at the status quo

ante before all of this happened. But can he prevent medium term energy shock from hitting the world economy and the American economy? Or is that already going to happen because this takes a while to reintroduce once you've blown up these facilities takes a while to get back online. As you and I are speaking

we're already in an energy shock and disruption. Oil's at 116 That's up from $60 a barrel. And how long does it last? Well, remember, you know, you've got nowhere to store this stuff. So when these guys are shutting down production, they're shutting down production, they have nowhere to store it. So it's three, six, possibly 10 weeks to restore full production capabilities. Okay. When you're hitting the gas fields in Oman, because the gas fields in Iran are hit. Remember, they share that offshore

gas field. They've been very successful at sharing that liquid natural gas field for 40 plus years. It's always been a diplomatic bridge between the Arabs on the Arabian Peninsula and the Persians across the Gulf. That's the diplomatic bridge. And what's happening now is they're hitting that gas field, which is blowing up that bridge. You know, the Omani said all military personnel, all diplomatic personnel from Iran, you have 48 hours to leave after those things were shit. So when your diplomats are leaving, it's very, very bad. That is not de-escalation,

that is escalation. But again, I want to go to where the situation room is. I want to put people right in the room and I want to talk about what should be being said and what is actually being said based on my knowledge, Gadi, of talking to people. So one, we're going to go and put the troops in. Okay, what are they going to do, guys? Okay, well, here's what they're going to do. They're going to do coast control, coastal control for the Strait of Hormuz. They're going to be looking for nuclear weapons. They're going to take out high value targets like senior IRGC leadership. We're gonna do short duration raids,

helicopter insurgents, think Bin Laden style raids. This is how they're talking to Trump in the room.

That is terrifying if that is what he's saying because just taking out that nuclear material is a massive and very dangerous operation. You've gotta have an airfield, you've gotta secure the airfield, you've gotta have flights going in and out,

you've got to dig through however many hundreds of meters it is of rubble to get to a commodity that is incredibly fragile and febrile. I mean, it's just-

Trump is seeing zero dark 30 and he's seeing Jessica Chastain and James Galdofini in the movie, that's what he's seeing. Okay. Guys, I wish this wasn't the truth, but we got to just tell people, right?

He's seeing the Osama raid.

Okay, so the other thing that's happening is that is a commitment trap, okay? And the minute you go to do that, every step that you're doing is going to cement the escalation. Okay. So now you have troops hitting the ground, his team is telling him that's going to end the deadlock. But in my opinion, sir, Mr. President, that's going to cement the deadlock and that's going to put American lives in harm's way as the collateral of that deadlock. But I think it's very important people to know and I'm gonna give it more than 50% Cady, more than 50% that we're gonna have troops on the ground in the next two weeks

unless there's some type of diplomatic solution that I don't see right now and maybe you do see it. But again, Trump is all over the place, Cady. Yeah. By the way, their their capabilities are completely destroyed. Their Navy is destroyed. Their air force is destroyed. But then why are you sending out tweets about bombs going

off and missile strikes in gas fields if everything's destroyed?

Well, because we don't believe him because he said last June, I've just obliterated Iran's nuclear capacity. Clearly that is not the case or else he wouldn't be saying today we need to make sure that they can never have a nuclear weapon. So we know that what he says is not the reality.

He has already shown us that. And I agree with you. I think at the moment, because of who he he is and because of the nature of the American war machine and it being so powerful, escalation looks more of a possibility than de-escalation. Can I just say quickly one thing about US and Israel? Because I actually think this war is a turning point as well in America's future relationship with Israel.

Bibi Netanyahu may feel that he is getting what he wants because that suits Bibi Netanyahu. But if you look at, there's a recent poll out this week that was stunning in America's attitude, Americans' attitudes towards Israel. So in 2013, 45% of Americans sympathized more with Israel.

13% sympathized more with Israel, 13% sympathized more with the Palestinians. In a poll by NBC News this week, 40% of Americans sympathized more with Israel, 39% of Americans sympathized more with the Palestinians. We've gone from 13% to 39% in 13 years. Now some of that has been Gaza and the bombing in Gaza, but this is going to take it in a new years. Now some of that has been Gaza and the bombing in Gaza, but this is going to take it in a new direction. 50% of independents now see Israel negatively. 60% of Democrats see

Israel negatively. We're seeing it play out in American politics. We're seeing the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC having to put huge amounts of money, almost $20 million, they put into primaries in democratic races in the state of Illinois just this week to try and get candidates who are more Israel-friendly or at least not Israel skeptics. But you're now ushering in a generation of Americans who are not going to see Israel as America's ally. And when those younger Americans, and you're seeing it amongst independents and you're seeing it amongst Democrats, once those people take power, Israel needs to be very worried.

I mean, if I was Bibi Netanyahu and I was concerned about the future of my country's security, I would be more worried about what's happening in America right now in terms of perceptions of Israel than I would be about trying to make sure that I have some forever war with Iran.

Look, it makes me sad because I've been to Israel many times. Obviously, I'm a philo-Semite. I hate the scourge of anti-Semitism. I think you can criticize the Israeli government, however, for some actions that they're taking without being deemed an anti-Semite. That's just my view. Yes. Sometimes I notice if you do say something negative about the Israeli government,

people say, oh, you're an anti-Semite. Yeah. I'm not an anti-Semite. I bet they're more Bar Mitzvahs than Christenings. I grew up on Long Island. Okay, so I'm not, number one, AIPAC, which is an American organization, not a foreign organization.

These are American citizens that are supporting Israel through political donations. AIPAC is losing the Democratic Party.

They are hiding their donations to candidates by saying it's not AIPAC giving money, it's groups like Affordable Chicago Now, Elect Chicago Women, United Democracy Project. They're not putting Israel or the pro or AIPAC anywhere in the names of the groups. They're having to hide the money that they're using

to support these more pro-Israel candidates.

That's a really important point, right? That I can know, I mean, that's not something that would have happened in the 80s, 90s, 2000.

Wouldn't have happened 13 years ago.

Okay. So, the Americans think this is a war of choice. The Israelis think this is a war of necessity. And I think that's another point of divergence of what's going on, but I'll just say this to people. Mr. President, what are the objectives? Define winning, because what you're doing right now is you are creeping the escalation. And if you put those ground troops in, that is a commitment trap, okay? And when the Iranians tell

you, and this is something I know about Trump, when the Iranians say, and they said it this week, you put those ground troops in, it's going to be just like Vietnam for you guys. How does Donald Trump react to a sentence like

that, Cady? He says, I know better. I can do it differently. I'm not like the others. I'm the president that can save us. And I'll know it in my bones, Anthony. He'll know it in his bones. So we can all be reassured.

That would encourage him to put the ground troops in.

Exactly. And his bones smell weakness and his bones are terrified of anything that would make him look weak.

And that's why he won't de be pushed into escalation because he doesn't want to look weak I think it is I think it is a disgrace and I want to be on the record saying this. I think it is a disgrace of the article one men and women who sit in the Congress That have allowed this thing to go in this direction without any type of organized direction without any type of organized intervention or any type of getting Rubio or Hexeth or General Kane in the room and saying, WTF guys, what are the objectives and why are we doing

this? And last point, Cady said something that you guys need to have an exclamation point put on. Caddy said that they said to Trump, all the other guys were cowards, but not you big boy. You're the muscle man in the room. And Caddy said, oh, I like that. So now I'm going to strike them to show my differentiation from the cowards who have

their portraits hung in the White House next to mine. their portraits hung in the White House next to mine. And that's where we are in America right now, ladies and gents.