Ben Rhodes

Tim, if you want to go back, this got so insane that they had a congressional hearing where I was supposed to be a witness, but they didn't actually try to get me to come.

They had an empty chair.

And I think Trey Gowdy and Tom Cotton took turns like yelling at the empty chair where I was supposed to be sitting.

I mean, this is how weird things got in 2015 and 16.

Kash Patel, when I had to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee during the Russia investigation, confronted me about some conspiracy theory that I had been denied a security clearance before the Obama administration because I was an Iranian asset, when in fact I had been temporarily denied a security clearance because I had been honest about my drug use.

Let's talk about that.

No, it's just, you know, it's all in the SF-86.

Okay.

Some of it took place in New Orleans.

But I'll just say that today it'll be an interesting test of who actually cares about this ideology of ending the Iranian nuclear program versus who just sold their soul to Donald Trump and the Republican Party of MAGA.

And I'm not holding my breath.

Most of these people that gave us no fucking room for error are going to give Donald Trump a ocean's worth of room for error.

Suddenly, they'll be defending unfreezing assets for the Iranians, giving the Iranians tens of billions of dollars, right?

Suddenly, they'll be saying, oh, he destroyed some...

some of the Iranian Navy.

And so this whole war was worth it, nevermind that they didn't need a Navy to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.

So what's the point of destroying the Iranian Navy, right?

They will rationalize this.

I don't know who they're talking to anymore except each other and a very small, like Lindsey Graham types on the Hill.

Like it's a, they're on a shrinking island, you know.