00:00Well, to get more on this story now, we're crossed live by Ben Swan, investigative journalist and
00:04founder of the channel Truth in Media. Ben, thanks for joining us on the program. First of all,
00:09I want to ask you about this coincidental pause that the U.S. has made in talks with Russia,
00:17just as we're seeing this escalation between Iran and Israel right now. What do you make of that?
00:23Well, I have a couple of sources inside the administration who tell me that it actually
00:28came from President Putin's call directly to President Trump on Sunday, and that there were
00:34people inside the White House who were very upset about this because they did not know that call
00:38was coming. It was not a scheduled call, and it created a lot of angst. Remember, there is an
00:43incredible force inside of this administration that many of us did not realize was as powerful as it is
00:51that is pushing for this war, and it's pushing out any voices of clarity and any voices of sanity
00:57at this point. And so the fact that President Putin picked up the phone, that he called President
01:01Trump and wanted to negotiate some kind of a ceasefire or peace between Iran and Israel,
01:08and the fact that that angered so many people in the administration enough that immediately after
01:13that, the bilateral talks scheduled for Monday were canceled, I think tells you a lot about what's
01:18going on right now. I feel very strongly that this president has been isolated and is making
01:25decisions that do not reflect really any of the campaign promises he made that got him elected
01:30by one of the largest majorities in Republican history. Well, those forces that you're talking
01:37about there, they must be pretty strong if you have, of course, Tulsi Gabbard, national security
01:42advisor, saying there's no nuclear weapons in Iran and for him to say publicly that he doesn't care what
01:48she has to say about that. I mean, do you think Trump understands the consequences that could ensue
01:53if the U.S. joins Israel? They start targeting Iranian facilities and military bases? Obviously,
01:59it's going to evoke a reaction to the many U.S. bases that are around the Middle East.
02:04I would remind people of the fact that in 2015, Donald Trump, 10 years ago, in fact,
02:10the anniversary of him going down the golden escalator 10 years ago to announce he was running
02:14for president in 2015. He was able to stand out from the crowd who, by the way, that crowded
02:20Republican race at the time was led by a guy named Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida.
02:27And the way that Donald Trump stood out in debates was he attacked Jeb Bush. Why? Because he said
02:31that Jeb's brother, George W. Bush, the president of the United States, had dragged the U.S. into a
02:37failure of a war. And it was his attack of the Iraq war. The only Republican in that presidential
02:43election to actually call out the Iraq war made Donald Trump popular. It made him stand out. It
02:49ultimately led to him winning the presidency not once, but now twice. And it's because of that
02:54stance that so many people from, you know, Republicans to independents to libertarians to even
03:01former Democrats came over and built this coalition around him that got him elected this last time around.
03:07Donald Trump spent more time talking about peace and being the peace president than anyone has done
03:13probably since Jimmy Carter, maybe more so than even Carter did. It is remarkable that he would
03:18make these statements and now suddenly, to your point, turns around and is asked about the fact
03:24that Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence just two months ago, said there is
03:29no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, has not been given orders to do so, that the supreme
03:34leader has not signed off on it. They're not building a nuclear weapon. And he says, I don't care what
03:40she says. I believe they are. Why? I mean, where is this coming from? And I think for so many Americans
03:47and especially the Americans who voted for him, listen, people are saying MAGA is splitting. MAGA is not
03:52splitting. A split sounds like you're going 50-50. There is an America First group that's probably 80% of his
03:58coalition. And there's a very small group, 10, 15, maybe 20%, who are in support of this idea of a
04:05regime change war. But I don't even know if the number is that high. But it's certainly, at least
04:0980% of his backing says, we don't want this. We literally voted against this, Mr. President.
04:15And the way he's talking to immediately say Iran must immediately surrender, it's, people are calling
04:21him George W. Trump, Bush 3.0. It's stunning to see this happen in the first couple of months of his
04:29presidency. I'm glad you brought up the fact that obviously Donald Trump ran on a peacemaker's
04:36platform last time around. Let's play a quick clip of what he said on the campaign trail before he
04:42was elected. Let's take a listen. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.
04:50That's what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier. We will be a nation like no other,
04:55full of compassion, courage, and exceptionalism. Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit
05:02of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable. America will be respected
05:10again and admired again. So considering what's going on right now, I mean, that's a really
05:16different Donald Trump that we're seeing right now. We're seeing now a Donald Trump that is
05:21essentially threatening the supreme leader of Iran with assassination. What do you think is going to
05:28come out of this? Listen, I'm hoping, and this is just my hope, I could be proven absolutely wrong.
05:35The president says he's going to address, in a couple of hours here, he's going to address the
05:39American people and with a major address. I am praying that that major address is not what we
05:44saw happen when George W. Bush went in front of the country and told them we were going to war in Iraq.
05:48I'm hoping that it is not a, we're about to go to war with Iran. But to see this president now
05:54talking this way is, it's beyond stunning. It's beyond being shell-shocked by him, because I don't
06:00actually believe that this president doesn't want to be the peace president. I think the things he said
06:05on the campaign trail were true, that he wanted to be a president who led in peace. Listen, I have
06:09five children. My two oldest kids are 25 and 24. They do not remember a United States of America that
06:17has not been at war in the Middle East. They do not remember a United States of America that's not been
06:22bogged down in some international war, an endless war. And we finally have a president who is elected to
06:29office who says it won't happen anymore. It's time to focus on America. America first. Let's bring
06:36prosperity back. Let's live at peace with the rest of the world. Why are we fighting with Russia? Let's get
06:40along with Russia so that they can be prosperous and we can be prosperous. Why are we fighting with Iran?
06:45Let's get along with Iran. That's what he was saying. I believe he actually believes those things.
06:49Where this is coming from, I have no idea. But I will tell you this. I believe very strongly the Israelis are
06:54doing so much more. Netanyahu is doing so much more than just stoking this. They're lying. They are
07:01constantly coming up with reports about how Trump was involved. Trump was part of a trick plot to
07:08make the Iranians believe he wanted to negotiate peace. And then they got them all. I don't believe
07:12any of that's true. And my sources are telling me that none of that is true. That this president did not
07:17know that Israel was going to lead the strike when they did. That members of the United States military,
07:22the CIA, they knew. But the president himself did not know. That's why when the president found out
07:27about Israel's attempt to assassinate the Supreme Leader, stopped it at the time. But now today he
07:34talks about how he might do it himself. So I think there are a lot of people who are just stunned by
07:39this and can't believe because it's not that they were hoodwinked. They don't think they were hoodwinked.
07:44So they're trying to figure out what is the force that has caused this shift because this is not
07:50what got this president elected. Listen, people wanted World War Three. They would have voted
07:54Harris. If people wanted World War Three and they wanted to see Iran toppled and they wanted to see
07:59an ongoing war in Ukraine and continued fighting with Russia, we just would have stuck with what
08:05we had. There's a reason that the American people turned out in record numbers to vote for this
08:10president. He's not only blowing it for himself, though. He's blowing it for the future of the
08:15Republican Party. The coalition he has built will be destroyed. This coalition of independents and
08:22former Democrats and people like Tulsi Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy, this coalition will be completely
08:31destroyed. The chance of a MAGA candidate like a J.D. Vance, his political career is over if this
08:38happens because there's no way he's able to run and say, I, too, will be pro-peace and then get into
08:43office. And maybe, Donald, maybe that's what this is really about. Maybe the goal here isn't just about
08:51Iran. Maybe we're short-sighted to think that the strategy here is just about toppling Iran and
08:56creating another regime change war. And maybe it's just the military industrial complex. Maybe the real
09:02ploy here is to absolutely destroy this movement that this president built, because if he does announce
09:09today or tomorrow in the next couple of days, that the United States will enter a war, another war in
09:15the Middle East, topple another country and drag us into another boondoggle, he has effectively killed
09:20everything he built for the last 10 years. Well, if that happens, if what you're talking about actually
09:27materializes and the MAGA movement, let's say, loses faith in Donald Trump as the peacemaker that they
09:34elected him to be. I mean, I'm not sure they'll go back to the Democrats, right? What do you think
09:39would happen during the next election cycle if the people feel like they can't trust neither Trump
09:45nor the Democratic Party? Well, they won't go to the Democrats, so they'll just completely opt out
09:50of the system. Listen, one of the things that made Trump successful this time around is he brought back
09:55what are called low-propensity voters, people who don't vote anymore because they'd given up on the
10:00system. And he convinced them to come back in, especially young men convincing them to come back
10:05and to vote. The minority groups that he brought in to vote for him, he brought in so many people
10:11who weren't voting before, they just go back to not voting. They step out of the process again. They
10:16walk away. They say, well, we were fooled into thinking that something could actually change.
10:20And I think that's the most disappointing thing about what's happening right now. This isn't just an
10:24issue of this president. It's about disaffecting so many tens of millions of people who thought they
10:33actually had a shot of ridding themselves of this deep state apparatus, of ridding themselves of these
10:38endless wars, ridding themselves of the uniparty. They thought that they had something different here.
10:43And listen, Trump did something amazing. The fact that he brought in someone like a J.D. Vance as his
10:47vice president, Tulsi Gabbard was part of the campaign and administration, now being dismissed.
10:52Tucker Carlson, who was out there pushing for this president as a president of peace,
10:57now being called kooky and dismissed. You see so many people who surrounded this president
11:01and there was a real coalition of something different. And that will completely go away.
11:06And by the way, I can also tell you this. Next election, forget about the next presidential
11:10election. Next election, the midterms, Trump loses the House. He loses his Senate. He completely
11:15loses control of that because Republicans won't come out. He's going to lose the coalition of people
11:20to vote. It's not about them going to the other party. It's about them just quitting the process
11:23altogether. That's what's about to happen. All right. Ben Swan, investigative journalist and
11:28founder of Truth in Media Channel. Thanks a lot for joining us. And it's always a pleasure
11:35for having you on the program.
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