The State of the Relationship Between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Sarah: Good afternoon in the United States and good evening here in Israel and welcome to yet another extremely compelling and complex dive into today’s issues. As all of you are aware, last Friday at approximately 2:50 in the morning, we in Israel were awoken to the sound of an eerie piercing alarm. Within minutes, we were told it was an earthquake, but then we knew that something else was going on. Israel had successfully attacked at least some of the nuclear infrastructures of Iran totally devastating Natanz, the epicenter of the nuclear enrichment program. Isfahan, where the nuclear assembly takes place, was badly damaged, and some of the above ground sites at Fordow, which is very deep in the mountains near the holy city of Qom also suffered much severe damage.

Israel has managed to eliminate much of the top military brass, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Iranian army, including Hassan Salami, the commander in chief of the IRGC, Mohamed Bagari, the highest ranking military officer in Iran, and also a central figure in the IRGC, and many others, including 14 other leading nuclear scientists. These well-executed strikes were designed to disrupt and dismantle not only the Islamic Republic’s genocidal anti-Semitic nuclear infrastructure, which poses an existential threat to Israel first and then to the free world and to the United States. But it is also too to send a deliberate statement to our common adversaries.

The operation underscores Israel’s resolve to address emerging threats with precision and with urgency. Each wave of sorties and the first night there were 200 waves aimed to dismantle Iran’s intricate nexus of influence, a network that extends its reach through proxies and covert alliances across the region. Yesterday Israel targeted the communications apparatus of the Iranian regime, showing what we and Israel sent all over the place, an anchorwoman fleeing from a collapsing building.

The strategic brilliance has been undeniable. Showcasing Israel’s determination to neutralize threats to her and the free world’s very existence. Yet, despite the sheer success of the operation, there are still some naysayers close to the president’s ear.

Tucker Carlson, disgraced Fox and fired Fox commentator, is one of the leading Isolationists who has advocated, “Dropping Israel and letting them fight their own wars.” Yesterday, President Trump wrote on True Social, which all of us took heart from, “Somebody please explain to Kuki Tucker Carlson that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.” Those last 6 words were written in all caps. He also wrote, “That we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Nobody does it better than the good old USA. We have some strong supporters such as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who has compared some of the naysayers within the Republican Party to the Isolationists and heirs of Neville Chamberlain.”

Yet, Trump left the G7 summit early on Tuesday, sending Steve Woodcock and Vice President Vance into the region, saying he wanted, “An end, a real end, not a phony end to these wars.” So we are here to discuss all of these internecine problems within the Republican Party by my most wonderful and brilliant friend, Ruthie Blum. Ruthie is a former advisor to the Office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She’s an award-winning columnist and a senior contributing editor at JNS and a former features editor to the Jerusalem Post. She’s the claimed author of, “To hell in a hand basket, Carter, Obama and the Arab Spring.” Ruthie is also co-host[?] with Ambassador Mark Regev of the JNS TV podcast, Israel Undiplomatic. And if you haven’t been watching this, you ought to. It’s really great. She often writes on Israeli politics and US-Israel relations. Originally from New York, she moved to Israel in the late 70s. She’s a regular guest on national and international media outlets, including Fox, Sky News, I-24 News, Scripps, ILTV, WION, and Newsmax. It is indeed our pleasure to have you speak for us, Ruthie, and to explain exactly what is going on within the Republican Party today.

Ruthie Blum: Well, it’s really great to be here, Sarah, and thank you so much for that warm introduction and plug. Now to tell you exactly what’s going on in the Republican Party would be hard for me to do, other than to say that it’s very peculiar that what we call now the woke right in the Republican Party has become sort of lockstep with the far left in the opposition or in the United States and elsewhere in, first of all, the isolationism, taking America first and make America great again, to mean closing down the borders.

Now it’s true, they wanted to close the borders from illegal migrants, but that doesn’t mean close your borders off from the rest of the world and go into hiding. And as President Trump also said recently, I believe he did post it on Truth Social as well. He said, “I’m the one who introduced that America first.” Of course, he wasn’t the first one to do that. But never mind. And I’m the one who invented MAGA. So I’ll say what it is. And that was in response to Tucker Carlson and companies constant harping on this that he’s being influenced by the Israel lobby, by what they call the neocon, warmongers, et cetera.

First of all, Trump didn’t like that. Don’t tell me that someone’s dragging me around by the nose. And second of all, I think I’m happy to say that Trump agrees, in other words, I’ve been interpreting his America first and make America great again to mean that it is also the greatest superpower in the world and that it dictates to the enemies what they have to do and not the other way around. I was relieved to hear that Trump, that’s what he meant, or at least that’s what he’s now saying. Unfortunately, in his administration, you have top officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, who is closer to Tucker Carlson in that respect than to Trump. And his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who said, “No, Iran is not building nuclear weapons.” But I was also delighted, I also laughed out loud, to hear Trump say on Air Force 1 when asked about it that, “Well, Tulsi Gabbard said they’re not building a bomb.” He said, “I don’t care what she says.” So, I think she’s not long for that job, either she’ll resign or get fired or some combination of the two.

The way I see it right now is that despite the Isolationists in the administration and in the Republican party, Trump is asserting the real meaning of Make America Great Again.

Sarah: Right. So, we did have Tom Massey, the Republican congressman from Kentucky, announce on Monday evening that he’s introducing a war powers resolution to prohibit the US from getting involved in Iranian-Israeli war. And of course, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican from Georgia, has thrown her weight behind this and behind Tucker Carlson. How important to President Trump do you think is the Isolationist wing of the Republican Party?

Ruthie: Well, I initially thought it was very important based on his appointments, based on his gang. When he was on the campaign trail, we saw Tucker sitting next to him at a lot of events. I think even during the inauguration, he was in the inner circle. I don’t remember exactly, but he was around. He was around Trump a lot. Maybe not as much as Elon Musk at the time, but quite a bit. I’m very relieved to see that he’s not listening to them.

Now, here’s the thing that makes them so ridiculous. First of all, what they like to do is compare this to Iraq, to America sending troops to Iraq. I would like to point out to those people that at the time when everyone believed, it wasn’t just George W. Bush and the White House, everyone believed that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons. And I’m not even sure he didn’t, but that’s not even the point right now. It was a genuine belief. But I would like to point out that Israel at the time, the Prime Minister was Itzhak Shamir, and he was told, “Do not intervene.” When Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles on Israel and Israel did not respond because America said, “Don’t do it.” Okay, but Israel even then believed that Iran should have been the target not Iraq. So I’m really sick and tired of hearing this business about Israel dragging America into things. That’s number 1.

And number 2, how dare these people suggest that Iran is only a threat to Israel? Iran has slaughtered Americans all over the world. Since 1979, the regime has called America the great Satan, Israel is only the small Satan. And these people, it’s like they never… Not only have they not read history books, they seem not to have paid attention to recent news stories and accusing anybody also neocon warmonger. It means nothing. It’s come to be code word for Jew and Israel is now… It is true that Israel has separate interests from the United States and certain issues and it’s true that every country has its own interests.

Israel has not begged America to do something against its interests. No. The most Israel has asked America to do is to enable it to do what it needs to do to save itself and that includes freeing up weapons, et cetera. And Israel did request of the Obama administration, that’s Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2015, his request was not to sign a bad nuclear deal, which he did anyway, and et cetera. I’m very enraged at those Republicans, being a Republican myself and being a Jew, and also never was I a neocon, I was never a liberal in order to become a neoconservative. I find it offensive that they talk that way because they sound like AOC and Rashida Tlaib. In the end, what makes them different from those people?

Sarah: Right. So this morning, there was a disturbing story in the Wall Street Journal saying that there is a possibility that Israel might run out of the arrow missile interceptor. Could you respond to that? And do you think that the United States will be able to provide these things to Israel on short notice? I know Israel probably has not been able to develop these sorts of things on their own. And what about the bunker buster bombs to be able to delve inside the underground storage units in Fordow?

Ruthie: Okay, well, let’s talk about the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal has news pages and it has the editorial page, the opinion pages. The editorial page is stellar, is pro-Israel, pro-America. It’s great. The news pages might as well be the New York Times. So, let’s first take their stories with a grain of salt, but also whether or not it’s true, it’s what it was reported.[?] Okay, you and I don’t have inside information. I suspect neither does the Wall Street journal, but even assuming what they wrote is true, you have to ask yourself, “What was the purpose of that report?” The purpose of that report was to say, “Israel’s losing.” That was the purpose of saying, “Running out, it’s costing them billions.” What we are right now seeing in Iran with Israel is an amazing, stunning victory. And the purpose of such a report is to say, “Not so fast, people, Israel’s actually going to be stuck with egg on its face because it’s losing its defense capabilities.” It’s actually Iran that lost its defense capabilities. Israel took its air defenses out in October. So I wouldn’t listen to that Wall Street Journal report because even if it’s true or part of it is true, this is what we know. Never before has there been a more pro-Israel president than Donald Trump. Never before has there been a president who grasped so well the values and the joint reasons for taking on an enemy as Donald Trump.

So, yes, if it’s true that somehow we’re depleting our missile defenses, while Iran is actually running out of its missiles, because it has no strategic goal here. It only has, you know, just will kill people. And when that’s done, it’s spread jihad all over the world. Israel has a real goal here. Take out the nuclear sites, take out the missile launchers, remove their ability to enrich uranium. It’s a real goal. If the goal is not, “Let’s just kill a lot of people.” No, it isn’t. So I believe that Donald Trump will not. And if that’s true and we’re running out of certain kinds of missile interceptors I don’t believe that Donald Trump will wait 5 minutes before sending more.

Sarah: Right. We’ve been seeing a long period of negotiations. And there were plans, I’m not sure if they’re still on, to send Steve Woodcock back into the region somewhere to negotiate with Iran. Do you think that’s still on and which way do you think the wind is blowing right now in terms of President Trump’s sentiments to be able to protect the United States and Western democracies from Iran and give Israel a boost with their ammunition’s capabilities or to ride this thing out, call for more negotiations?

Ruthie: All right, well, initially I thought, “What the hell are they negotiating with Iran for?” There is no such thing as a good deal. I know that Trump is the master of the art of the deal, and that Witkoff knows how to make real estate deals. But I’m thinking to myself at the time, I was thinking, “What is he? What does he not realize? He’s the one who ripped up that terrible Obama deal.” But it’s not just that it was a bad deal. It’s that any deal with Islamist is a bad deal because they don’t abide by it in the first place. And in the second place any deal requires some kind of concession on the part, like in a real estate deal, you’re brokering something, you both have the same goal, I give a little, you give a little. Now, with evil, you don’t give a little. So I was concerned that Trump was under the illusion, and that was true with Hamas, et cetera. And that Witkoff really had no clue about the Middle East. And I think what happened is that Witkoff suddenly woke up to the fact that these people are not acting in good faith. It’s a shame he had to find that out since anybody else could have told him that. But what I also realize is that now, given what Trump’s been saying when he says, “Unconditional surrender.” I’m thinking maybe even his negotiations, really what they were was not negotiations. They were saying, “You raise the white flag peacefully, and if you don’t, you’ll suffer the consequences.”

I now don’t believe that he really was thinking that it was a normal negotiation. “You get rid of it, you stop being who you are, and then we won’t kill you, okay?” And he said that all along. “You can do it the easy way or the hard way.” Now, I’m saying, maybe I was wrong to think that he actually believed that this was a genuine negotiation going on and not America asserting itself over this tyrannical Islamist regime whose entire being is to have regional global hegemony and to spread radical Islam to the globe. And that means killing infidel Muslims, all the west and all that and I think maybe now I owe Trump an apology for having thought that maybe he had the wool pulled over his eyes.

Sarah: Yes, and I think I owe him the same apology. Ambassador Mike Huckabee has been making incredibly wonderful comments all along. And we know where he comes from. He’s a genuine believing Christian. Who really has a biblical point of view about the land of Israel and the people of Israel, and it’s very refreshing to hear him. How important do you think his words have been? Do you think he is really reflecting President Trump’s point of view, or he’s pretty much speaking on his own?

Ruthie: Well, since we know a few things about Mike Huckabee, whom I adore, by the way, We know that it was taking an awfully long time to have his appointment go through, because the Democrats, they hear the word God or something and they freak out. Okay, so Mike Huckabee, is a believing Christian, but he’s also got an amazing sense of humor. He’s very jolly. He’s not some stiff fuddy-duddy or anything and he says that God gave Israel the land et cetera and the Jews are the chosen people. But what his recent post on Truth Social was more than that. He said, “Yes, God gave me this great opportunity. Trump gave me an opportunity to go to Israel and be the Ambassador, et cetera.” And he also said, “And God gives certain figures in history a role.” And he believes that Trump has that role. I’m paraphrasing of course because I don’t have the quote in front of me and that he believes that Trump is the right man for this. He was selected for a reason and I think he said, like Truman was selected during World War II, and he’s made this comparison and that Trump has the opportunity to really take up that role.

Now you asked me, “How does Trump see it?” Well, we know 2 things. We know he was Trump’s appointment. Trump wanted him to be the Ambassador to Israel specifically. And we also know that Trump shared that post on Truth Social. And then it went viral on Twitter and everywhere else. So, that tells you what Trump thinks about it.

Sarah: Right. That is really wonderful. Secretary of State Marco Rubio came out on Friday morning with a very puzzling tweet, essentially saying that if the Iranians harm any US Troops or bases, something to that effect, then we will respond. How do you take that? Do you think that’s his only word?

Ruthie: Okay, so since Rubio is not in the Isolationist part of the party, he’s not one of those. We know that. And so you have to say to yourself, “Why, what’s the purpose of that tweet or that statement?” Now if 4 days ago this war started, as you said, early Friday morning, we’re only into the fifth day I believe if I’m counting correctly. And in this war 4 days or 5 days is like 5 years. So, first of all, saying what Rubio said a few days ago is funny. It’s like so much has changed. That’s number 1. Number 2, though I know Republicans who were very upset that Rubio said that. Republicans, I mean pro-Israel Republicans who were upset. I said, “No, don’t be upset.” I believe that that was his way of saying it was a diplomatic, don’t forget he’s secretary of state, he’s the chief diplomat of the world basically the secretary of state of the United States. And I think what he was saying was, “Israel is doing what it has to do.” He never said Israel shouldn’t do it. All he said was, “If Americans are harmed then it’ll be in our interest.” And I don’t think what he meant was, “We don’t care about anybody else.” I think this was his diplomatic way of giving a message to Iran and also helping Israel, helping Israel not be accused of dragging America into something.

I actually think it was a clever move on his part. Now, I wouldn’t have said that had that statement come from someone else in the party whom I know to be an Isolationist. But because it came from Marco Rubio, I said, “No, he has a reason for using that wording.”

Sarah: Brilliant. So, just today we see, I think it is a third naval carrier is going into the region. I think, if I were a betting person, I would bet that President Trump and those in power are going to support the state of Israel to do what is good for the rest of humanity. Yet, when I look at Truth Social and Twitter, and I see some of these responses to the pro-Israel comments coming out of the administration, I get chills down my spine. There is a great division where some people had interpreted America first to mean America only and a kind of neo-isolationism. How do you think the party is going to respond to all of this if indeed our instincts are correct and President Trump does decide to give Israel the support it needs to be able to do the world’s journey work in heavy lifting?

Ruthie: It all depends on how much the United States enters the war. First of all, we know that the US is helping to intercept missiles, as far as we know. Whether the United States is actually going to take its 30,000-pound bunker busters and actually use its own planes, the B-2 stealth bombers that can carry those massive bunker busters. And apparently a B-2 bomber can hold 2 of those. That’s 60,000 pounds in an airplane. Think about that. Now, whether they’re going to actually do it with American pilots or just give Israel the bunker busters or… We don’t know. Okay. But… [crosstalk]

Sarah: Yeah, I might have to go downstairs to the MAMAD, the sealed room. There might be a siren but let’s go on and chill. [crosstalk]

Ruthie: Okay, for sure. Anyway, so what I’m saying is either way, we know the United States is supporting Israel. Trump is a great friend to Israel. He is not, whether he actually uses American pilots, we don’t know. And it’s not even necessary. Israel is not demanding that. We need the equipment, and we need the moral support, and we’ve got that. And I don’t think that Trump is abandoning Israel. And by the way, I also think that Trump realizes this is an American interest. He didn’t like the Iranians pulling that crap on him. I think he also wants to go down in history as part of this amazing moment, right?

Sarah: Until the Azakar[?] comes I would love to know what you think about the possibility of the Iranian people affecting regime change as this is going on. We’ve seen them on the streets, some applauding the Israelis actions. So what is your interpretation of this? Can there be a velvet revolution?

Ruthie: Well, there could be. And again, you don’t know when there’s a revolution or overthrowing a bad regime, you don’t know what’s going to replace it. Okay, we don’t know. But guess what? We shouldn’t even care. It’s not our business. We can care. We can hope. We want them to be free. We want them to have a democracy or whatever else. But that’s not our business. It is our business to protect ourselves and hope, by the way, we are definitely, it will definitely give them an opportunity to get out from under those horrible ayatollahs and to have women not be tortured for not covering their hair properly, okay? We’re all in favor of that. But is not our job.

Somebody asked me, “What about the day after?” I said, “If I hear that word the day after one more time about any place I’m going to scream.” How about today when there are missiles flying in our face? That’s what we care about. And yes, we would love to help the peaceful Iranian people in any way we can. And this is a way to help them, not by choosing new leaders for them. No.

Sarah: Right. Speaking of the day after, we know that today is day 614 of the Gaza war. And we have been watching the redistribution of aid. How do you think that is going as opposed to how it had formerly been going when the aid was in the hands of Hamas?

Ruthie: It’s going really well because it’s taking the food distribution and the food theft and the food reselling or selling to hungry Gazans, it has taken it out of Hamas’s hands. So that has weakened Hamas totally. It’s one of the reasons that Hamas wanted to up its ante in so-called negotiations with Witkoff about getting the food back in its own hands, or excuse me, in the UN, in UNRWA’s hands, which is the same thing. And what we’re seeing is it’s weakening. What we’re not seeing yet is the release of the hostages. And now I’m hoping that what we’re doing in Iran is going to affect Gaza because after all Hamas is an Iranian proxy as is Hezbollah.

We don’t know how, we know there’s a movement behind the scenes and we know that Hamas is very weakened. What puzzles me though is why no Gazan at all has come forth to help release the hostages. Even in Nazi Germany at great risk to themselves, Germans, non Jews were hiding Jews, were trying to protect them, not everybody of course, but there was a number of them. We honor them as righteous gentiles, righteous among the nations. And Gaza, whatever is happening there, we’re not seeing that. And that’s very disturbing. Whenever I say that, “Oh, you say everybody’s Hamas.” No, I say in that respect everybody’s complicit and to say they’re afraid, well, we know that but there is such a thing as a conscience and we saw, believe me, Germans were just at risk of being killed by the Nazis for protecting Jews as Gazans are. So, went from Hamas. I don’t know what’s going on there, but we know that something is moving and we’re desperate to get those hostages back, but not to commit national suicide in the process of doing so.

Sarah: Right. Yes, and we can never forget about the hostages right now. If the siren goes off, and I do have to go into the MAMAD, the sealed room, I will let Lily handle the questions and make a concluding pitch for Amit and for you, Ruthie, who are so brilliant to read. I just love your articles in JNS and read you all the time, and I feel it’s a real treat to have you. What do you think about the Greta Thornburg and her stint? It seems like ancient history now since the events of last Friday morning, but what do you think of the stint and these virtue-signalling stints of these people on their flotillas, et cetera.

Ruthie: She’s a big joke. And what I think is that Israel handled it brilliantly. Brilliantly, because it basically ridiculed her in a very peaceful way. And you know what, the whole sham was up. We knew it was a sham. Her whole career is a sham since she was 13 years old. But one thing we know is the fact that when Israel intercepted their flotilla, which was one boat, that’s not a flotilla, one boat, and said to them, “Okay, show’s over.” Brought them back to Israel and played for them the video of the Hamas atrocities on October 7th, and they refused to watch it. They turned their backs. So that says all you need to know.

They’re not interested in what Hamas did to Israel. All they want to do is bash Israel. All they want to do is say that Israel is committing crimes. They’re not interested in seeing what precipitated this war. And so their sham was up and everybody has been making fun of her, which is exactly the punishment she deserved. The memes are hilarious. And you know, it’s just, so as I said, and thank God she was upstaged by a much more important mission. And that is to take out Iran’s nukes.

Sarah: Right. I’m just overwhelmed by the degree of professionalism, of resilience and courage of the IDF and the Israeli Air Force, of the reserves, the reservists and their families, your son, my son-in-law, all of these wonderful people who give up their personal lives for months and months on end now. Because they know that this is their homeland and they are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for it. I’m also overwhelmed by, just the resilience and the pride of the Jewish people. They know this is a time of war. Most of us are insomniac by now. We function on maybe 1 or 2 hours of sleep a night. Yet there is a real sense of community. There’s a sense of giving. Neighbors ask how you’re doing, how your family is doing, how you’re getting by. It’s just a wonderful spirit, a vibrant, resilient spirit. And we’re not going anywhere. After 2000 years, we finally come home and Israel is here to stay. And I think it is really a beautiful thing.

I know it’s been very difficult for you, Ruthie, because you’re in Israel all the time. I’m usually in Washington, DC all the time. I’ve been here for 6 weeks now and will probably be here for a good time longer. I’ve always said to try to get back to Israel as, you know, an expatriate, not really an expatriate, but a temporary, very temporary expatriate. Are you feeling like a fish out of water?

Ruthie: Totally, but actually I haven’t reached the day that my flight is supposed to return to Israel. So, I’m praying that it’ll take off as scheduled by the end of the month. It may not, but I feel terrible. You mentioned my son. It’s true. One of my son’s… My son-in-law is now in reserves. My son was in Gaza for many months and now he’s with 2 children in a bomb shelter that he set up. It’s kind of… The neighborhood kids are there. They’ve set it up like a slumber party. That’s what you were talking about resilience, okay? They have snacks. He tried to make it fun for them. So, in one weird sense the fact that there are these missiles and they have to be in an actual bomb shelter and not at home in some corner if they don’t have a proper safe room is, they turned it into a kind of adventure and the kids are now with their father. They were missing him so much while he was in Gaza, and now because Iran is firing missiles, he’s with them in a shelter. So, it’s kind of this weird. It’s a weird reality. As an Israeli I’ve been through that many times. My eldest son in his 40s was in a gas mask when the gulf war happened. He’s gone through terrorism and wars and the sec first into father the second into father every war.[?] And they get used to it. But one thing you always notice, you said, it’s not just resilience, it’s this understanding that we’re not at fault.

Sarah: Right. The Azakar,[?] the alarm hornings still hasn’t gone off, So how would you remind everyone that there is absolutely no second choice? We in Israel are absolutely doing the heavy lifting for the free world. And if Israel weren’t doing this, I don’t think any other country would. So, how can we convince people not to let the naysayers within the Republican Party or the America firsters, whatever they are, the neo-Isolationists and the progressives, stultify us. We have this historic moment right now that we’re living through and we must succeed or else I think if, God forbid, Israel were to go down, I think this will just engender jihadists all around the globe to keep on doing what they’re doing.

Iran would probably have nuclear weapons within a week or maybe a month, maybe a few months, but the IAEA says probably within a week. This is not just Israel’s war. And I think we have to make that case as strongly and loudly as we can. And I leave it to brilliant people like yourself, Ruthie, to make that case.

Ruthie: Well, I appreciate the compliment, and I return it to you as well with your writing, but I’ll say, you asked how we can persuade them. Well, we do what we can. We write, et cetera. We also have amazing other people. We have Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin and we have lots of people; Douglas Murray, Richard Kemp. Again, the list is long. People who are stating the case militarily and morally and everything else. But the real, I would say, luck that we have, or skill, I don’t know, is that we have Netanyahu as the leader of Israel right now and Trump as the leader of the United States. Because despite all the pressures and all the attacks and whatever else and attempts to put them in jail, name it, they are not budging. So, I don’t think that the naysayers are having the effect they’re hoping to have.

Sarah: Okay. So, let’s see what else. Has anybody made a deliberate decision not to attack Khamenei at this point? Or do you know?

Ruthie: No, I think that it’s definitely on the table. Maybe it seems to be. But even Trump said, you know, there are all these reports in Axios. I don’t know why everybody quotes Axios. It’s always wrong. And Barak Ravid, who’s an Israeli turncoat, whatever, he’s always reporting, “Oh, sources say.” And he never says who they are, of course. And there was report that Trump told Netanyahu, “Don’t kill Khamenei.” But then Trump himself posted on Truth Social, “We’re not going to kill you yet, not yet.” [crosstalk] I think it’s important that the message get across and I’ll tell you, I was told that there’s a joke circulating in Iran, in Persian, I mean Farsi, they say, “Nobody knows where Khamenei and his family are hiding except the Israelis.” So, whether we do or we don’t, I don’t know if we’re going to kill him. Certainly, it would be no great loss. In fact, it would be a net gain to kill that evil force. It’s on the table, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily going to happen.

Sarah: Right. Ruthie, do you have any insight on how the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Garber, had gotten it so horribly wrong when she wrote in her testimony that Iran and Daphne are working on nuclear weapons?

Ruthie: Let me tell you something. You say she got it wrong. I say that there is an element there. It’s not that she got it wrong. There’s some reason she wants to promote that false narrative. I’m puzzled why she was made director of national intelligence, given her background, et cetera. No, she has a military background and all that, but she’s clearly in the pocket of some, not such friendly to America elements, whether she is duped by them or is in cahoots with them, I have no idea. But I wouldn’t say she’s just wrong about it. This is a concerted effort to mislead, to misdirect, to misguide. So as I said, she’s got to be fired or leave because she’s in a very important job. But luckily, Trump said, “I don’t care what she says.”

Sarah: Here is somebody, Rafael Grossi, who is the director of the IAEA, who says the exact opposite and has been barred from inspecting the nuclear sites for years now. To me, it just seems like a fabrication.

Ruthie: I don’t know her, but maybe she’s got too many buddies in Qatar or Russia. The point is she’s not on the right side, okay? It’s not because she’s an Isolationist, but her problem seems to be worse, or maybe, all of those, maybe tuck her the same. You have to be suspicious when somebody who under normal circumstances would not have those positions. And when they do, you have to say, “What’s going on here?”

Sarah: Right. And as Cheryl Silver, one of our listeners said, “I agree with Ruthie. Perhaps it was significant that Tulsi Garber was not invited to Camp David last week when other White House officials were.” Right?

Ruthie: Definitely significant. It was no accident. That was not an accident. That was on purpose. Yes.

Sarah: Right. But we have seen that other national security hawks have been dismissed, like Mike Waltz. There are people that have been very pro-Israel in the past. So, I think there was something at the beginning of the administration that was going on. But even J.D. Vance’s tweet yesterday was very telling, where J.D. Vance has also been somewhat of an Isolationist and he said, “Look, you’re not in the room we’re all in. And if the president makes the decision to go ahead, he has the right evidence.” I’m paraphrasing again, but he has the right substantive evidence to be able to make that decision.

So, a couple of days ago, I wasn’t quite as optimistic as I am right now. But I think that we’re all on the right side. Ruthie, do you have any closing comments that you’d like to give all of us today?

Ruthie: Well, it’s so easy when addressing a sympathetic audience, sympathetic interviewer. So, every comment is sort of welcome and it’s so much easier because we know we’re among friends, right? So my closing statements are that I’m normally a total pessimist. I always say, “Uh-oh, we’re not doing enough, they’re not doing enough, and I keep being proven wrong.” I was proven wrong by Netanyahu several times during this war. The beeper operation was a great example. I would say the week before we’re saying, “What’s going on? Things aren’t happening.” I no longer say that. When there’s quiet, you know what? It’s like when your little kids in the other room. It’s when they are quiet that you have to worry or know that something’s really going on, right? I have to stop second-guessing the people I elected to do something because, just because they’re not sharing the ins and outs of it with me does not mean it’s not happening. So that’s my closing remark.

Sarah: Thank you so much, Ruthie. I should be getting down into a man-by-man soon. I just want to tell everybody to please sign up for JNS, sign up for Ruthie’s program. It’s amazing. It’s once a week, or?

Ruthie: Once a week.

Sarah: Once a week, phenomenal. And please support us here on a mat[?] right now. Part of my staff is on Capitol Hill with your manager, the former minister of congressional affairs. And we’re seeing everyone from Tom Cotton to Elise Stefanik and many people on the left as well. Thank you so much. I think my granddaughters are telling you to come down. Okay, sorry about that. Okay, bye-bye now.

Ruthie: Bye-bye.

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