Ben Rhodes

That's not reassuring allies.

That's not reassuring Americans.

That's not intimidating Iranians.

Like, he's literally performing for Fox News and Lindell TV and whoever else is in that briefing room.

Yep.

without giving any coherence or clarity about, you know, because what he said about the mission, that it's not about democracy.

Well, I thought they'd been telling us for weeks that this is because of peaceful protesters that we had to come to their aid and Donald Trump telling the Iranian people to rise up.

If you're one of the Iranian people that is thinking of rising up and then you hear Hexa say, this is not about democracy.

It's about killing.

It's about destroying their missiles and Navy.

Does that incentivize you to rise up?

I mean, it makes no sense.

Well, and because that's the most likely scenario.

Doesn't that feel like the most likely scenario now that like essentially we bond them for a few weeks, kill more and more people.

But then there's maybe some civil conflict.

But the IRGC and the Basij just massacre people in horrible numbers.

And then there's this kind of crazy rump IRGC regime.

And you can say that they've been defanged, but it's still a giant country.

And they'll rebuild some capacity, and they might be more dangerous.

They'll certainly try to get a nuclear weapon.