 A senior administration official tells CNN that President Biden told Prime Minister Netanyahu that the U.S. will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran. Do you think that's the right call or should direct U.S. military action as some of your colleagues in the Senate are suggesting? Should that be on the table? I don't agree with that. And I just think we should follow and have Israel's back in the situation. I don't agree with the President. That doesn't change anything that he's a fantastic President and I'm proud to stand with him and campaign for him and vote for him. Marco Rubio was just on the show and he said the White House leaking the fact that Biden told Netanyahu not to directly respond, to take the win, quote unquote, was offensive to him because it seemed to suggest that it's Biden trying to appease the far left in his party. What's your response? Well, I don't know. I mean, the President is entitled to his own views and whatever he decides to do. But I would never capitulate to the fringe. I'll never pander to that as well. In fact, that helps that empowers Hamas. You just heard Senator John Federman accuse Biden of empowering Hamas by capitulating to the fringe in his party because he dared to say that he doesn't want tensions between Israel and Iran to escalate. He's trying to cool tensions. Now I have my criticism of Biden in this situation and we'll get to that in a moment. But not that long ago, Federman is the one who said that anyone who criticized Biden is a Trump supporter. And we also have to start having, you know, all kinds of Democrats criticizing the President too publicly. I don't understand why. I don't know what's in it for you to do that, whether you're just chasing clout or you want to make in the news or anything like that. But if you're not willing to just support the President now and say these kinds of things, you might as well just get your MAGA hat because you now are helping Trump with this. Well, I guess it's time for Genocide John to break out his MAGA hat because he is now publicly criticizing the President and in effect helping Trump by his own logic. Now I say this because Axios tweets that Biden was hit with a barrage of criticism from both sides of the aisle by telling Netanyahu that he won't support an Israeli counter-attack against Iran. Now that's a bit of a misrepresentation because if you dive into the article, Biden isn't actually being criticized by both sides. The only Democrat on the record criticizing Biden is John Federman. In fact, Chris Coons is mentioned in the article, but he agrees with the President's approach. In other words, John Federman is the only Democrat teaming up with Republicans to lambast Biden for not directly wanting to escalate tensions further, which puts him in the same camp as neocons like Marco Rubio and even John Bolton who are currently chomping at the bit for war with Iran. Last night, the Iranians launched 320 plus crews and ballistic missiles and drones. It's a blessing that the Israelis find only 1% got through, but not every night is going to be that good. And unless Iran sees a powerful response, that risk will continue. And the way to reestablish deterrence is not proportional. That's academic talk. The way you established deterrence is by telling your adversary, if you ever try that again, the price you will pay will be so much higher than any gain you think you can get, you shouldn't even think about it. I don't know what they'll do, I can't predict it, but I will tell you this. If Joe Biden, as some press reports have it, is urging the Israelis not to retaliate at all, he is an embarrassment to the United States. This is an American interest to make sure that Iran, which is the principal threat to international peace and security in the region, is at a minimum put in its place. So he's beating the war drums hard, but expectedly so. Now, it's also really deeply irresponsible for so-called journalists like Jake Tapper to bring on one of the most war horny people in America when things could spiral out of control. Like we don't need his input right here, not only because Bush-era neocon should be in prison and not on television, but because his appearance is redundant. Why bring on neocons like John Bolton when you can have John Federman pair it the same exact shit? Now, to be fair to Jake Tapper, he did also bring on John Federman who did pair it the same exact shit. But I mean, Bolton, he had the same exact thoughts about Biden capitulating to the fringe as John Federman had. And I would say this too about this escalation, this fear of a wider war. The administration fears a wider war because it's worried about gasoline prices in the United States. It's worried about the left wing of the Democratic Party. The fact is, Israel has been in a wider war since October the 7th, which the administration has resolutely refused to recognize. Now, you expect that from a neocon like John Bolton. He doesn't care at all about escalation. And to the extent that he cares, he wants things to escalate further because he wants war with Iran and has been open about wanting war with Iran for decades. But when it comes to Democrats like John Federman, we shouldn't just accept that they're being openly militaristic on national television, right? But like John Bolton, he also doesn't care about escalation. Senator, what is your reaction to Iran's attack on Israel and how worried are you that this is the beginning of an open war between the two countries? Well, a couple of things, actually. I think it really demonstrates how it's astonishing that we are not standing firmly with Israel and there should never be any kinds of conditions on all that. When a nation can launch hundreds of drones towards Israel, I'm not going to be talking about conditions ever. And second, I think that also was Iran had to have some fireworks after Israel smoked that Iranian general. And I am here for that. And I think it's just a matter of theater, part of it as well too. And finally, it demonstrates how unstable things are and why we need to lean in and stand with Israel. He is almost indistinguishable from John Bolton at this point, although there are two exceptions. First, if you watch Bolton's full interview on CNN, which you should not, but if you do, he comes up with a range of targets in Iran for Israel, whereas Federman basically says, look, I'm not going to make any recommendations. Israel leads and will follow. So there's one difference. Second, and what makes Federman the weaker war propagandist than Bolton is he acknowledges why Iran launched those missiles at Israel in the first place, because Israel smoked in Iranian general, which he totally thinks is cool and supports by the way. Now that right there is a rookie mistake, because if you're trying to manufacture consent for a war, you end up undermining your case. If you don't portray the enemy as a belligerent bad guy who just spontaneously chose to attack you or your ally for no reason, because if the audience finds out that Israel actually struck Iran first, then they might learn that Israel is actually the real aggressor in this situation and not Iran. And they might not necessarily view further attacks by Israel as defensive. And you always want the audience to think that this is defensive. Any move that you take is defensive. Any move that your opponent takes is offensive by definition. That's like war propaganda 101. So Federman overplayed his cards here and accidentally revealed why all of this is happening. On April 1st, Israel bombed an Iranian embassy in Damascus and the hundreds of drones fired at Israel by response was actually the real retaliatory response. But after they go to Iran into an attack, they are now vowing to quote retaliate against Iran. Now Iran is vowing to respond again if Israel responds again. And now Israel is ironically demanding that the UN Security Council take action against Iran for the attack that they provoked out of them. And I find this so interesting because when the UN Security Council passed the ceasefire resolution, well, Israel chose to ignore it and accuse them of supporting Hamas. But now that the UN Security Council might be of use to Israel, well, they're choosing to respect the authority of the UN Security Council. Interesting how that works, right? So Israel is basically the geopolitical equivalent of a bully that cries to the teacher after they get punched back. Now here's the thing, both Iran and the United States, they don't actually want war. But Israel and specifically Netanyahu is trying to drag them both into conflict. But the question is why and nobody knows for sure we can't get into Netanyahu's head. We can only speculate. But I think that Professor Sultan Barakat, he has some really compelling theories that I want you to hear. But I think the reason he's doing it is achieving colorful objectives. One, he's extending the status of war and with the emergency rules that keep him in power for now, by reminding everyone that Iran will retaliate. Iran will retaliate as a threat. He's also managed to silence the criticism, the little criticism that started to come from Washington D.C. concerning his operations in Gaza. Now it's very unlikely that we hear anyone saying anything against Israel over the coming few days. The fact that the U.S. President is rushing back to D.C. That's an example. And Israel is deploying war planes in the air. It suggests that they think it is imminent. They think it's imminent and they probably think, they're made to think it's imminent by Israel. And they think that Israel needs them even more. He's also going to accelerate the delivery of the weapons that Biden has promised, including the critical F-35 jet fighters. And the most, I think, critical is he's going to silence the opposition within his own country. Now he will stop the right for demonstrations on the basis that we're all on the threat of Iran. I think the professor is right. There is increasing pressure on Netanyahu to not invade Rafa and to withdraw entirely from Gaza. But all of a sudden, nobody's talking about that. Nobody's talking about what he's doing in Gaza. We're all focused on Israel versus Iran. That's the point. Netanyahu has an interest to keep the genocide in Gaza going as long as possible and to escalate as much as he can because his own political survivability hinges on it. And this isn't necessarily something that's unique to Israel or Netanyahu. He's not the first leader to use war for purposes of political expediency. And he won't be the last. But war with Iran only serves Netanyahu. It doesn't serve the people of Israel. It doesn't serve Iran or the people of Iran. And it certainly doesn't serve the United States and the people of the United States. In fact, war with Iran would be catastrophic for Joe Biden's reelection campaign, which is why he's telling Netanyahu that the U.S. isn't going to support retaliatory strikes against Iran any further. But here's the problem. As Trita Parsi puts it, Biden needs to prevent further escalation, not just declare his desire to stay out of it. And that right there is a really important point because it's not enough for Biden to continue urging Netanyahu to do things when Netanyahu just doesn't listen to anything Biden has to say. He disregards his input. It's in one ear out the other. And that's because Biden hasn't used his leverage or even tried to hold Netanyahu accountable in any way. Biden needs to take concrete steps to stop further escalation. Otherwise, he could inadvertently pull the United States into a war with Iran, whether he likes it or not. Because the U.S. is going to defend Israel regardless if they started it or not. Netanyahu knows this, which is why he's playing this deadly game of chicken right now. The U.S. already intercepted some of the drones that Iran fired. And they'd do it again if they had to, obviously. So Biden needs to make sure that the United States isn't put in that position. And that requires him to do what he's been needing to do for a long time. Use his goddamn leverage. Cut off the weapons. Cut off support. And support for this position, contrary to popular belief, isn't actually fringe. Both of the genocide Johns, both Bolton and Federman, want you to believe that it's fringe, but it's not. On April 12th, major Democratic Party organizations signed a joint letter calling on Biden to do just that, including Indivisible, Move On, the SCI Union, Working Families Party, and even the Center for American Progress, who has literally hosted events with Netanyahu. And I say all of that to say that pressure on Biden to cut off weapons to Israel is at an all-time high. And Netanyahu knows this. He's not ignorant to the politics in the United States. But odds are, Biden is going to be more apprehensive about cutting off weapons to Israel now, more than ever, so as to not upset the warmongers who will accuse him of capitulating to the left or Hamas or Iran or whoever if he chooses to act right now. But if he does actually want to avoid war with Iran, cutting off Israel is a necessity. So it's time for him to use that leverage, not just because he needs to avoid war with Iran to protect his own ass politically, but because it's important, because Israel is using those weapons that we are sending them to do a literal genocide. We can't lose focus of that. Netanyahu wants us to not think about that. He wants us to be distracted, but don't get distracted. Now, the reason why politicians like John Federman are increasingly frustrated with the so-called fringe of the Democratic Party is because he's tired of them questioning him about his support for genocide everywhere he goes, case in point. Senator, you do agree that the vast majority of hostages who have been released were released through ceasefire negotiations, true or false? No, that's a question. You don't want to answer it? Senator, I always thought you were an anti-racist, but it seems like you value Israeli lives more than you value Palestinian lives. Is that true? So you think an Israeli life is more valuable than a Palestinian life? He's not even pretending anymore. He used to say, oh, I care about both Palestinians and Israelis. Now he's just like, still with Israel, fuck off. But I mean, none of us should be surprised considering the fact that this is the same exact guy who pulled a gun on a black jogger when he was the mayor of Braddock. So, you know, it's not necessarily a shocker that his racism extended towards other people as well, including Palestinians. But John Federman is one of many politicians cheering on Israel's genocide in Gaza and now chomping at the bid for war with Iran at the behest of Israel, specifically at the behest of Netanyahu. He is a symptom of a sickness and deep rot within our political system. And if he thinks that I'm fringe, that's fine by me. If being against war and genocide makes me fringe, I will happily wear that fringe title like a badge of honor. I'd rather be fringe and moral than mainstream and immoral with hands that are blood-soaked.