Overtime - Episode #636: James Kirchick, Matt Duss

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night Series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

All right, here we are in number 10 with the executive Ice President of the Center for International Policy, Matt Belton, the columnist with Group Magazine, Damy Kirchik.

Here are the things people want to know.

What explains Israel's intelligence failure?

Yes, we never got to that.

Why?

I mean, wow.

I mean, Netanyahu was always the security guy.

I mean, people, oh, he's an asshole, but he's our asshole, and he's going to keep us safe.

And Israel is always...

That's his main argument.

Yes, and always great at this kind of stuff.

And they have to be.

They live in the roughest neighborhood in the world.

How did this happen?

Great question.

Well, I think there was the operational level where they took out some sensors, right?

And somehow the Israelis didn't see that.

But I think there was a larger strategic picture where they really did not think that Hamas would attempt something like this.

They thought that Hamas was something that Hamas,

they could sort of deal with them in some way, but that they wouldn't.

They were letting in guest workers.

They were letting in guest workers that Hamas would not be so irrational or suicidal, whatever word you want to use, to actually perpetrate something.

Yeah, I mean, I would make two points here.

One is just to understand the scope of the intelligence failure here.

We're talking about, I think it's some 1,500 Hamas fighters who were killed inside Israel.

You had probably another 500 more who took the hostages back into Gaza.

So we're talking at least 2,000 people.

That's a lot of people talking.

To keep it, that's a lot.

Yes, exactly right.

The idea that Israeli intelligence could not figure this out or know that something was going on.

But also the second point, you know, I made reference to the settlements to Ben Gavir, and Israeli security officials and others have suggested that one of the problems is that you had a lot of Israeli security redeployed to the West Bank to protect settler groups for the purposes of promoting settlements, attacking Palestinians, and that left the fence line relatively undefended, which also suggests that Hamas themselves may have been shocked at how easy it was to cross through.

Also, I may say, too many Jewish holidays.

A lot of

that one's

a critical

Jewish holidays, I disagree.

A lot of the soldiers were like on leave.

So it was 50 years

to the day of the young people.

You would think they would see that coming.

Yeah.

It's like Lou Gehrig and Lou Gehrig's disease, right?

What are the odds?

What are the odds?

Okay.

Well, Ohio Representative Jim Jordan...

This is hysterical, what's going on.

If it wasn't our Congress, I'd laugh

harder.

But win enough votes to become Speaker.

How does having a Speaker of the House impact military aid?

I'm actually more concerned.

Can someone get this guy a gift certificate to Brooks Brothers?

Yeah, right.

Seriously.

I mean,

politicians have always done the shirt sleeve rolled up, but not always.

Just when you're trying to make a point, and like, I'm a man of the people, but sometimes you have a jacket on.

Okay, but

now,

I may have this recap wrong, but he was the choice at the beginning of the week

by Trump?

Couldn't get the because Trump endorsed him.

Last week I heard it was going to be Trump himself.

Because this is crazy in America.

You don't have to be a member of Congress to be the Speaker of the House.

Shouldn't you?

Is that not a law we should have?

And then Trump realized that you have to do stuff.

Right.

It does involve actual work.

Oh, a lot of work, yes.

But, okay, so then they went to Steve Scalise.

Steve Scalise, the guy, he was a hard right-winger from Louisiana.

David Duke without the baggage, as he is.

That's in his own words.

He said that.

David Duke without the baggage.

I guess that's that little ring.

Bring baggage is doing a lot in that phrase there.

Baggage is, that's a little, that's when you can't even get it close.

You know, you're just trying to get the suit.

Yes.

But

and now they're back, as in,

by the time this goes on the air, it'll probably be stale, but now they're back to Jim Jordan,

the former gym teacher.

I call him

like Dennis Hastert, the former wrestling coach.

Well, he was an assistant wrestling coach, right?

Yeah, he was Jim Jordan.

I call him Jim Jim Jordan.

Yes.

And, you know, obviously some very troubling allegations in his past.

What?

Obviously, some very troubling allegations in his past about...

You know what they say?

You know what they say?

Those who can't teach teach Jim.

And

those who can't teach Jim become Speaker of the House.

It's so scary.

But that's true.

It doesn't true.

The other Jim teacher who was a Speaker of the House, Dennis Haster, he was a child molester, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Convicted.

Okay.

This guy is not a child molester, but he did let it go on.

That is the allegation, yes.

That's the allegation.

Okay, we're just allegedly that he knew about it but didn't do anything to stop it.

Right.

Kind of like, you know, he was Joe Paterno to Jerry Sandusky.

Yep.

Remember Jerry Sandusky.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Did that depress you?

Now that Bob Benendez, another butte,

the guy with the gold bars in his jacket.

This FARAUP charge, this foreign agent.

registry charge.

Will he be, yeah.

I mean, which is an addition to the bribery, which is pretty amazing, because I mean, working in Washington, and James probably knows, is like to run afoul of FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, you have to want to get caught.

These are so loosely enforced, and I just, as with this, as with the bribery charge, when you read what he actually did, it's like Menendez was like, challenge accepted.

I am going to be so blatant and sloppy.

Okay, will the the U.S.

right to freeze access to the $6 billion in funds it transferred to Iran as part of the prisoner deal we negotiated, or was the U.S.

right to freeze that?

Yes.

We negotiated last month.

Okay, so if people don't know, we wanted to get how many people back?

Five?

Five.

We got them back.

And we got them back, and we paid $6 billion.

We didn't pay it.

It was money that owed to Ukraine.

No, it was Iran's money from oil that had been

sanctified.

But we made the deal.

We did.

We got the people back, and now we're not giving them the money.

I mean, I'm not.

I'm not

taking Iran's side in this, but, you know, we did have a deal.

I mean, we have a history of breaking deals with Iran, unfortunately, but

the charge was made that, you know, I think Tim Scott and others made this completely demagogic, you know, false claim that, you know, this money

helped to fund the attacks we saw last weekend, which is absurd for a number of reasons, not least of which is none of this money had been dispersed yet.

They haven't seen us.

But there's a larger point that we should have maintained the pressure campaign on Iran that the Trump administration started, and that that was rolled and dialed back by the Biden administration.

And it has allowed us to...

That's really not true.

They've kept in almost every element

of the Trump deal.

No, they absolutely made it.

What we should have done is kept a deal Obama made.

That's exactly what we should have done.

No way.

No.

No way.

That's absolutely.

This Iranian regime, how can you make a deal with this Iranian regime?

If you have a deal that keeps them away from a nuclear weapon, make that fucking deal.

And they did.

And Obama made that deal.

I mean, it was like this is...

With a sunset clause of 12 years.

Okay, so we would just postpone by 12 years the date that they got a nuclear weapon.

Well, nothing, no deal is perfect.

Isn't that what we're saying about the Palestinians and the West Bank?

They could have had their own country many times.

Not many times, but a few times.

Certainly,

there are deals that they could have taken and didn't.

Right, they could have had 97% of the West Bank.

But it was not perfect as no deal is because Israel was not about to give it to them, just say, oh, you know what, do your thing.

They were like, yes, we have to keep an eye on you for very good reason.

But over time, if they had taken that deal, where would the world be today in 2023?

If Arafat had taken that deal, and in 2000 there was a day, yes, then you show Israel we're not out of the world.

Somehow we got connected to Israel-Palestine from Iran.

Okay.

But I'll just get back to the Iran deal for a minute.

I think important to understand about this $6 billion billion is that it was going to be, it's handled and held by Qatar and was going to be spent by Qatar on specific humanitarian items.

So

it's not like we're giving Iran under strict monitoring.

But money is fungible.

Money is fungible.

And money that can go to paying for humanitarian goods can be also used on the right.

No, but it's not as if, and listen, as they say, the military eats first, right?

So Iran has not been, even though they've under some of the heaviest sanction in the world, they still have not been, you know, they still have money to spend on their military and all their, you know, their nefarious activities.

This is just giving money to actually help their people.

Again, not defending this regime.

No one should.

But I think let's understand the nature of this $6 billion and what it is going to be.

I got one last question.

I've been hearing a lot this week that Nikki Haley is really kicking ass.

That she's rising up in the Republican Party.

There she is.

And

I see George Wills column says Tim Scott should bow out of the race, throw his support to Nikki Haley, encourage everybody else in the race to do the same thing, that this is the viable alternative to Donald Trump.

And if we just had a race,

if we just had a Republican race with just two people and Nikki Haley was the alternative, it's possible that she would take it from Trump.

There's a chance.

There's a chance.

I thought she did great in the first debate, not as good in the second debate.

But look, he has over 50%, Trump does.

That's now, and yeah.

If it was just two people.

So So she would have a fighting chance, and yes, I would absolutely

all the other Republicans running now need to do their patriotic duty and do what they didn't do the last time, and they need to rally behind one anti-Trump alternative.

And she's, I don't know,

if you remember, you know, Trump has not really taken her on yet.

He's waiting.

If you remember from, you know, Lord of the Rings, you know, the eye of Sauron.

Once the eye of Trump turns to Nikki Haley with all its withering power.

All right.

Thank you, guys.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

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