Ben Rhodes

And then on Monday, Iran's foreign minister said, we are not looking for war, but we are prepared for war.

even more prepared than the previous war.

We also ready for negotiations, but negotiations that are fair with equal rights and mutual respect.

So, like, we'll find out.

I mean, look, the last time the U.S.

bombed Iran, the response was for show.

Like, literally, they called ahead and they said, hey, we're going to shoot missiles at you.

Prepare yourself.

They did hit some Israeli targets and did some significant damage and killed some people.

Maybe if, you know, it's an existential threat, the response is stronger.

We'll find out.

All right, let's do an update on last week's regime change gambit in Venezuela.

So on Thursday, this week, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado is going to meet with President Trump in Washington.

The big question in the U.S.

media is whether she is going to give Trump her Nobel Peace Prize, despite the fact that the nice little Norwegians over at the Institute say you can't just do that.

You can't just kind of like hand the thing off.

I'm glad we're focused on the importance of your bend.

More consequentially, Machado is going to have to figure out how to balance pushing Trump to listen to the will of the people of Venezuela, or at least to hold elections with his decision to install Nicolas Maduro's handpicked vice president, Delce Rodriguez, as president and basically leave the entire Maduro regime in place.

Over the last week, the Venezuelan government has slowly started to begin to release political prisoners.

CNN reported that as of Tuesday afternoon, 56 prisoners out of the over 800 political prisoners in Venezuela have now been set free.