>> The Trump administration is escalating tensions with Iran and accusing Iran of attacking
Japanese oil tankers.
Now they have released their version of so-called evidence, although their evidence seems to
conflict with what the Japanese believed happened to these oil tankers.
So let's take a look at the first First video again, this is what was released by US Central
Command in order to provide evidence that Iran was in fact behind this attack on these
oil tankers, take a look.
There it is, you can't really see much.
It's supposedly a boat with Iranians in it and the accusation is that the Iranian boats
showed up to retrieve an exploded mine from one of the tankers.
But, the Japanese president of the shipping company argues that, no, there were no mines.
What happened was there was some sort of projectile situation and that led to the explosion.
So there are conflicting reports and I want to give you the exact quote.
The president of the Japanese shipping company that owns one of the tankers, said crew members
reported it was hit by a flying object, contradicting the US account that the vessels were damaged
by mines.
Also, here's a direct quote from the individual I'm referring to, the crew are saying that
it was hit with a flying object.
They say something came flying toward them.
Then there was an explosion.
Then there was a hole in the vessel.
Then some crew witnessed a second shot.
To put a bomb on the side is not something we are thinking.
If it's between an explosion and a penetrating bullet, I have a feeling it is a penetrating
bullet.
So again, there are conflicting issues here and Iran is completely denying that they were
behind any type of attack.
>> The company's president went on to say a couple more things.
He said I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship
and he also said there is zero possibility that they were torpedoes.
And one more thing he said, he said, no, the explosion was further up on the ship.
>> Right.
>> And so it couldn't have been anything that was at water level.
Now between the United States government desperate to start a war with Iran with incredibly flimsy
evidence, and the people who are on the ship, and the placement of the explosion, it’s
not a close call.
So it’s clear that the United States government is lying.
I just want to be absolutely clear about that.
Now the rest of the media, cable news I should say, because New York Times and some of the
print media have given a clear example of the president of the ship and his quotes and
the witnesses, etc.
But on cable news, all I've seen is Iran attacks American ship.
The Pentagon says Iran, not an American ship, a Japanese ship.
>> Mm-hm.
>> Iran attacks, Iran attacks, Iran attacks.
I don't care that the US government said it, you're supposed to be journalists and you're
supposed to investigate it and see if that actually happened or not.
>> I will say- >> This is obviously made up.
>> And I know you mentioned this but I just wanna re-emphasize that I am seeing responsible
reporting when it comes to the print outlets.
Usually when there's a call for war from any administration, whether it's the Trump administration,
Obama administration, it doesn't matter, they all join in and they all seem to support that
narrative.
But in this case, I do want to give the New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR a lot
of credit because the reporting that they're putting out there really clearly shows that
there's a conflict between what the US is alleging, and what the Japanese are alleging.
Remember, it's their oil tanker that was attacked.
But with that said, I want to quickly go to Donald Trump's comments on this, and then
I want to get your thoughts.
>> What sort of evidence do we have that they've done it, and what are we gonna do about it?
>> Well Iran did do it and you know they did it because you saw the boat I guess one of
the mines didn't explode and it's probably got essentially Iran written all over it.
And you saw the boat at night trying to take the mine off and successfully took the mine
off the boat.
And that was exposed, and that was their boat, that was them, and they didn't want the evidence
left behind.
I guess they don't know that we have things that we can detect in the dark that work very
well.
So we have that, and then you put it on.
So no, it was them that did it, and- >> Do they work really well?
He says we have evidence that can see in the dark that works really well.
Although, how can we tell that that boat contains Iranians.
>> Well, first of all, I want to congratulate Fox and friends for actually scoring a Donald
Trump phone call interview, good job guys.
Not since Hannity got Diamond and Silk have I seen booking like this?
Let's talk about the good news first.
There is good news.
The good news is we don't go to war with Iran until President Putin decides and Venezuela
Iran, we'll have to see.
Also, the good news is they're a year too early to wag a dog for an election in the
case of invading Iran.
But any of your conservative brothers and sisters who thought Trump meant his antiwar
rhetoric should have been woken up when John Bolton joined the Partridge family bus that
is our White House.
The other good news is the Gulf of Tonkin was trending nationally yesterday, which tells
me shows like yours and other people are making an impact cuz so many people were onto this
scam day one >> Yes
>> The Gulf of Tonkin was trending nationally and that's really good news.
Donald Trump is gonna next probably blame the Japanese tanker because Asians can't drive.
But again, this is our fundamentalists, right wingers and their fundamentalist right wingers
who want war.
The differences Iran, the Mullahs, they know the truth which is half the population of
Iran is under 40 right now.
Their system is aging out and these young people are not gonna be able to be fundamentalist
drones like their parents and grandparents in many cases were.
The society is changing and that is why they're so scared they made a peace agreement and
allowed Barack Obama to earn his Nobel Peace Prize several years after getting it.
So the ayatollah's goal apparently according to Trump is they're terrified of losing their
power.
So their strategy is to start a war with Iran and all get killed.
That's the logic.
Like Saddam had the WMDs but he just didn't use them cuz his goal was to get caught and
killed, and that's the logic we're getting.
>> Yes, so two things about this.
First of all, I love how flimsy the excuse is.
They're like yes, the Iranians drove back to the scene of the crime cuz they left a
bomb and wanted to retrieve it and apparently they don't know that we were taping the tanker
that was on fire.
And golly gee, we forgot to check the tanker for evidence earlier while it was on fire
and we missed the mine.
>> And the Cuba Gooding Jr. tape is clear to see what's going on in that, too.
>> By the way, can I just mention one other questionable component to this story.
So the leader of Japan Shinzō Abe, was in Iran.
He was in Tehran meeting with Ayatollah Khomeini.
And so wouldn't it be weird for Iran to randomly attack a Japanese oil tanker in the middle
of this meeting with Shinzō Abe and the Ayatollah?
>> So that gets us to who actually is on that ship and who actually did the bombing because
it it appears the one people would get eliminate is the Iranians.
So if they didn't do it who did it?
Cuz it did get bombed.
And so one clue is that it was a plane cuz they said a missile came from the sky or if
not a plane at least a missile.
So that eliminates all countries that don't have the wherewithal to have a plane or a
cruise missile go undetected by other forces and hit a ship like that.
So, hm.
And then, you've got to have people that look vaguely Middle Eastern in a grainy video sneak
up to a boat and take off a mine they left behind.
>> It didn't have ACME written on the side?
>> Look, your last clue would be, who wants to start a war with Iran?
Well, John Bolton and Pompeo and those guys do but us bombing a Japanese ship, that might
even be a bridge too far, besides which Trump couldn't plan one step ahead if his life depended
on it.
Could they then use that to lie about the situation and agitate towards a war?
Absolutely.
>> Yeah.
>> But there are at least two other countries in the Middle East that would love for the
US to attack Iran and that is Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Now, one of those countries is completely reckless and, for example, chops up journalists
and goes, we probably won't get caught.
>> Right.
>> It's a giant hit squad to another country with a bone saw and looks vaguely Middle Eastern
or a lot Middle Eastern, right?
And so I don't know who did it and I don't know if if it's one of those two countries
but that's where I would start.
Because you look for motive and if it isn't the Iranians, it's people who wanna blame
the Iranians.
>> Is it possible it's rogue actors?
I mean, I don't wanna point fingers at like, you know, the Iranian revolutionary guard
because they did a lot of work with Ivanka for that Trump Azerbaijan hotel front, good
going guys.
But could it possibly be independent actors, not a nation state that wants this conflict?
>> Well, I thought of the same thing, John, and so now we're speculating.
Of course, we don't know.
We're not gonna do what the Pentagon did.
It's true.
Or now with the Pentagon and Trump.
>> It's true, it's a lie.
I know it.
I saw it.
I saw the grainy video.
It's definitely Iran, right?
So I don't know that it's definitely Israel or Saudi Arabia.
Of course, we don't know that but it's logical to us to think about who would want to start
a war.
Hence John's point, could there be some rogue actors or independent folks who also want
to start a war?
A lot of people gain from wars, most people lose, but oil companies from wars, defense
contractors went from wars, but you need either a plane or a cruise missile if you believe
the witnesses.
So that would lead towards the state act here.
>> Real quick and remember last week the Intercept broke a story about how Forbes was allowing
a contributor who wanted regime change in Iran to contribute to it's publication.
And then the intercept found that this wasn't actually an individual, this was a group of
people in Iran who have been pushing for regime change in Iran.
So it could be you know, a member of that group.
We don't know, all I know is Iran is completely denying this.
You know, Shinzo Abe is meeting with the ayatollah as this oil tanker gets attacked.
And at the same time, you have the president of the company that owns this oil tanker saying,
no, this wasn't a mine, this was some sort of projectile.
And, you know, this person is putting out conflicting reports from what our government
is saying.
>> Has Abe offered his opinion on what happened because he and Trump are BFFs, I don't know
if you know that?
>> No, in fact, the Iranians said that Abe was part of this and so there is now super
mad at the Japanese for trying to get them into a war.
Now was Abe really a part of it?
I have no idea I know that the president of the ship is saying the American's story is
not true but I have no idea if he's connected to Abe at all.
So look again this portion of the story is obviously speculation about different people
who might have done it and who might be involved.
The group that Anna's referred to as Mojahedin-e Khalq, and they're nuts.
They're led by a cult leader if they can get their hands on a cruise missile or anything
along those lines, would they do it?
They seem like they're willing to do anything, but I have no idea that they have the capability
of getting anything like that.
And also another country that wants war with Iran is United Arab Emirates.
So these are all the things that if you actually care to solve the issue, you would look to
for your top list of suspects.
Either the people who are trying to send a message to America don't mess with us like
Iran.
And by the way, if you said, hey, it might be Iran, but could Hezbollah, that is connected
to Iran, be able to pull something like this off?
I'd put them on a list of suspects if I'm trying to figure out who actually did it.
Again, them having a missile of that magnitude seems unlikely, but I'd put them on a list
just in case.
>> And based on another part of that interview, I think the only kind of regime change Donald
Trump is thinking about is replacing Mike Pence with Nikki Haley, which I am much more
worried about than anything else right now.
>> Nikki Haley is an even bigger warmonger than Mike Pence
>> Ding, ding.
She's a neoconservative, now Trump, I don't know what his intentions ever were.
He doesn't know what his intentions were, but even if you thought that he was in favor
of peace and not getting involved in Middle Eastern wars.
>> He is now surrounded himself with a phalanx of neo-conservatives who can't wait to start
another disastrous war in the Middle East.