Ben Rhodes

Well, you need a little levity.

I just... It's a reason to bother to subscribe to us on YouTube.

Yeah.

Because if you saw the glasses, I think you'd be laughing with us.

Yeah, I mean, look, the red line thing in which we live was about chemical weapons use, and then when chemical weapons were used, there was not a military strike.

And look, we can relive that.

I accept the criticism, though, that if you say it's a red line, that at a minimum, you shouldn't have used that kind of foreshadowing and then not followed through on it.

And the reason I make this point and to connect it to everything else today is I do think that

Trump is treated differently.

This is not a new insight.

We have to stop treating him differently.

He's the president of the United States of America.

Whether he's Donald Trump or somebody else, he told people to rise up and he said help would be on its way.

And let's not forget the pageantry of that week.

You've got Lindsey Graham flying around Air Force One with Make Iran Great Again hats.

You've got like the Shah's son out there.

Like he was conveying a ramp up to Iranians and then he did a rug pull on them.

Yeah.

But then you shouldn't have encouraged them that way.

You should have found other ways to show solidarity, other ways to call out the regime, other ways to mobilize other countries to impose certain consequences or to try to help support Iranian protesters in whatever way you can, whether it's provision of internet or getting their stories out or whatever way.