 Hello everyone, I hope that you are having a fantastic day considering the circumstances. I didn't want to wait until Monday or Tuesday to talk about this because it is incredibly important, so I decided to make a video now. As many of you know, President Donald Trump has killed Quds Force leader Qasim Soleimani, and this is an act of war. It would be as if Iran killed one of our joint chiefs, the vice president, it's of immense consequence. I can't stress that enough, and there's a lot to go through, and I just couldn't wait to talk about this. My heart was racing last night as I was lying in bed thinking about this because the consequences of this, I mean, we don't really know. There's a lot of uncertainty currently, but what we do know is that nothing good will come of this. This is a drastic escalation, to say the least. Now the first thing that I want to point out is that the only reason why we're contemplating the prospect of war with Iran is specifically because of Donald Trump. Had he not torn up the Iran deal, this would not be what we're facing currently. But because he doesn't really have a strategy when it comes to the Middle East, and because Obama did it, well that's why he decided to pull out of the Iran deal which kind of led to this escalation in the first place. So understand first and foremost that we are the aggressors here. We are the ones who are continually poking a beehive, poking the beehive that is Iran, and no matter what we do to escalate, we always paint ourselves as the victims. Now we'll get to the specific details about Soleimani's murder. He is someone who's incredibly popular in Iran. So this is going to galvanize the people who are against the more moderate leaders in Iran. This will embolden the more extremist individuals who hate the United States. I mean if you were in Iran, would you take the side of people who want to work with the United States, who has continuously spat in your eye? So obviously that will be what logically follows. But you know, putting aside the situation currently, I want to talk about U.S. domestic politics first because I think it's incredibly important. Over and over again, Donald Trump has stated that he believed Obama would take us to war with Iran in order to secure his electoral chances back in 2012. In fact, he even said this numerous times via Twitter and he said this on video as well. Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. So the only way he figures that he's going to get reelected and as sure as you're sitting there is to start a war with Iran. Now Donald Trump may be a blithering idiot, but I think that his political instincts are better than a lot of politicians. He knows one that incumbent presidents, they do benefit from incumbency in and of itself and also from a relatively good economy, at least if the media is saying that. But they also benefit from war, right? People tend to rally around the president whenever there are times of war. And even if we've kind of been in this constant state of war now for decades, basically, I mean, he believes that this will help him. So we have to understand that that is part of his motivations. Maybe not necessarily all of it, but he kind of revealed that he believes that an incumbent president can in fact benefit from going to war with Iran. So the fact that he's doing this now is incredibly conspicuous and the media should point this out again and again and again. You know, kudos to individuals like Ilhan Omar, who are in fact taking the time to point this out. Now let's talk about the details of this. So we decided to escalate, right? We unilaterally escalated. But yet that's not the story that the Trump's administration is telling us. So media is reporting that Soleimani was planning an attack on U.S. diplomats and service members. Mike Pompeo called this attack imminent. And last night was the time that we needed to strike to make sure that this imminent attack that he was working actively was disrupted. And he said this with a straight face as if we would all believe him after our government told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, Donald Trump implied that the attack was defensive and it actually was done in order to prevent war. Imagine being so naive to believe something like that. Mike Pompeo actually contends that the United States is now committed to de-escalation. So as usual, we are the victims, right? We would never do anything to escalate with Iran. This is basically us taking a defensive action to stop an attack that was imminent. And even if Donald Trump's administration claims that they wanted to escalate and that they don't actually want war after killing one of Iran's main leaders, well, understand that we are prepared if they want war. See, we escalated. But if they respond, it's still us that are the victims that are responding to them and we're ready. But we don't want that, but we are ready. We have the best intelligence in the world. If Americans anywhere are threatened, we have all of those targets already fully identified and I am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary. And that in particular refers to Iran. So when Iran responds, which I think that's inevitable, they will respond. Trump is saying we're ready for a response. And when they do respond, we know the playbook that, you know, Donald Trump's administration will use. They did X, Y and Z or Z and now we're just responding. They're escalating. Don't, you know, take into consideration the fact that we escalated by killing Soleimani. Don't consider the fact that we tore up the nuclear agreement, which was a peace deal. It's always them. We're always the bad guys and nothing that we do is ever bad and never warrants criticism or skepticism. So war with Iran is now highly likely. And you can actually argue that it has begun because what Donald Trump did is an act of war and predictably people who are benefiting from this are already seeing the benefits, right? We see defense stocks on the rise. I mean, it's exactly what you'd expect. And there would be maybe a glimmer of hope if the media was competent, but they are already manufacturing consent for another war. You have CNBC persuading people to believe that someone that they've never heard about. I mean, how many Americans know who Qasem Soleimani was? Well, they're supposed to believe suddenly that this was the world's number one bad guy. You know, if if you're the number one bad guy in the world, then most Americans would have probably heard about him. But, you know, this is the narrative that we're supposed to believe. We have Fox News bringing on guests suggesting that Iran, you know, they're going to be in the streets celebrating this. You have the New York Times publishing articles from former Bush administration officials who cheered on the war in Iraq, who lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and who are, you know, being published in the New York Times, cheering on a war with Iran. As Carlos Mazza pointed out here. So, I mean, the situation is incredibly bleak. Now, I do want to share some tweets with you because, you know, the media, they're not a good opposition force. They're not before the state in actuality. They're not doing their job. But, you know, we do have an opposition party. So you would hope that Democrats would do a good job, right? Not not exactly. So we have just one statement that I'm going to share from Chris Murphy, which I think represents the totality of responses from the Democratic Party, with the exception of individuals like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, predictably. And of course, Bernie Sanders, who's the only presidential candidate who actually had a competent response. But basically the response is, you know, Solomoni was a bad guy. But, you know, maybe we shouldn't have done this. They always start with that caveat. And that's problematic because they're trying to justify and rationalize this attempt at escalation, which was brazen. But you don't have to add that caveat. Just admit that what Trump did was bad. Stop trying to justify our escalatory actions in the Middle East. That's what they do. And, you know, this response to that response from Chris Murphy by Hayes Davenport is, I think, perfect. Watch, every dem statement will begin with a first sentence like this. And that's how they'll drag what should be a hugely unpopular war into the realm of nuance and viability and take the best political opportunity they could possibly be handed and just biff the fuck out of it. Exactly. Kyle Kalinsky also responded to, you know, Nancy Pelosi, who says that Trump launched airstrikes killing Iranian general without authorization. So they're not necessarily against it, but they just wanted you to ask for permission and they would have ultimately probably said yes. And, you know, Kyle says here, process criticism instead of substantive criticism. Sir, you didn't fill out the proper paperwork. We're so fucked, dude. And I mean, that's it. That's basically where I'm going to leave you with, because that's that's the situation we are fucked. I will show you Bernie Sanders' response because I do believe that his response is solid. It's basically what you want to look for in a leader who I believe will actually deescalate, but let me see. He put out a response yesterday that I want to find for you. Sorry, and I'm a little bit discombobulated here. I'm a little bit sick, but here we are. When I voted against the war in Iraq in 2002, I feared it would lead to greater destabilization of the region. That fear unfortunately turned out to be true. The U.S. has lost approximately 4,500 brave troops. Tens of thousands have been wounded and we've spent trillions. Trump's dangerous escalation brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives. And trillions more dollars Trump promised to end the endless wars. But this action puts us on a path on the path to another one. Now, one issue that I take with this is that Bernie Sanders is not pointing out the number of Iranian lives that would be lost in the event we went to war with Iran, because I mean, is anyone expecting this to be a war that is waged in Oklahoma? Of course not. This would happen in the Middle East. Maybe it's a proxy war. Maybe it's a war directly in the streets of Iran. We don't know what the end result will be ultimately. But this is going to kill a lot of people, Americans, but mostly Iranians. Right. So the loss of life should never ever be something that we overlook. It's something that is so disgusting, so devastating that we should absolutely always put that at the foremost, the front of our concerns. Right. It should be our foremost concern because essentially people in Iran and the United States, they have only indirect control of what their leaders do. Right. In the United States, we can take the streets and we can protest, which we should do absolutely. But ultimately, Donald Trump, is he really going to be moved by public opinion? I'm not sure. So we can only scream as loud as we possibly can in hopes that we have some influence over the situation. But the influence that we ultimately will have is minimal. And regardless, if we protest or take to the streets, Donald Trump will do what Donald Trump does. He has a massive ego. And if he truly believes that this will help his reelection chances, he will do what will facilitate his reelection because we know he has no strategy in Iran. He has no Middle East or foreign policy strategy. Like before he was elected, he didn't know the difference between the Kurds and the Kurds. So the man is an idiot. He's going to do what he thinks will benefit him. Now, there's a couple of factors here, right? He's not just going to take us to war with Iran if he thinks that that will help him win reelection because he also is balancing out, you know, this 2016 message of our leaders are stupid and they want to take us to war with Iran. But at the end of the day, you know, we are living in a time where America is comparable to George Orwell's 1984 totalitarian state, right, where we are fed lines that are so laughable. They're the polar opposite of what is the truth, right? War is peace, freedom of slavery, ignorance is strength. That's essentially, you know, the situation that we're living in when we escalate with Iran directly. And we're told that we're defending ourselves and that an attack was imminent. I mean, who believes that? Who believes that? Give us the evidence. Give us the proof you don't have any because it's not something that is that was imminent. Nobody believes it. So I think I'll leave that there. We'll certainly I'm assuming revisit this by Tuesday, assuming that nothing else happens. I'm sure that the story will continue to develop as this is developing as I talk about this. But nonetheless, I just want to leave that there and let you all know this situation is incredibly, incredibly important and be prepared to take the streets to protest to prevent a war with Iran. You know, there were protests against the Iraq war and that didn't necessarily have an impact. But nonetheless, make sure that you do everything you possibly can as a citizen to, you know, tell our government war with Iran is absolutely unequivocally unacceptable and out of the question.