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2000 years ago, a newscaster that we know of as Jesus Christ warned us about false Christianity. The warning was not against the devil but against false Christianity…about people who come in His name and deceive many.
Here is the text with a new line after each sentence (best-effort sentence breaks based on punctuation and speech cues):
Here’s a tweet from my friend Jennifer Jacobs at CBS, one of the best political reporters, government reporters I’ve ever known.
Reuters reports, some personnel have been advised to leave the U.S. military’s base in Qatar by Wednesday evening.
Three diplomats told Reuters amid warnings from Washington that it could intervene to protect protesters in Iran.
Quote, it’s a posture change and not an ordained, ordered evacuation.
One of the diplomats told Reuters the diplomat said he was not aware of a specific reason.
That have been given for the posture change.
The reporting overnight very mixed about whether or not there’s going to be a military strike.
And my reporting is the presence of many minds.
He’s being told by the vice president and others to be cautious about this.
He doesn’t, he likes his winning streak.
Great successful missions with no U.S. casualties.
And so the question is does he continue the hot streak, if I can put it in those crude terms, or does he not risk, tempt fate, and continue.
And of course the overnight reports about the number of Iranians killed literally ranges from two thousand or so to twelve thousand.
And obviously every life is precious, but that’s a big difference.
Just quickly, and then I’m gonna do the day book, guys.
Spidey sense or reporting, do you expect something’s gonna happen today in terms of U.S. reaction, Larry?
No, not today.
Not today.
OK, Kevin?
Not today.
Not today.
OK.
I think maybe today, by the way, but stand by.
We’ll see what happens, maybe even during this.
Do you think that, or do you have reporting to?
I don’t.
No one told me it’s happening today because, of course, no government official would say, hey, Mark, we’re going to do the military.
It’s all the body language.
It’s all how people are responding or not responding.
It’s this thing that Jennifer Jacobs pointed out from Reuters.
And the president’s interview with CBS and all his comments yesterday.
And I believe the expectation that the red line is going to be crossed.
There are people in the government now who think it may have already been crossed.
The president hasn’t been specific how many people have to be killed.
He seems, I don’t know why he cares if people are shot or hung.
That seems like a meaningless distinction of how they’re killing people.
But he said yesterday if they start to hang people that he would do something, or he suggested he wouldn’t.
And it seems like they may hang someone today.
The president last night on CBS exclusive interview was asked if Iran has crossed this magical and mystical and not very well-defined red line.
Have they crossed your red line or has the line moved?
I haven’t heard about the hanging.
If they hang them, you’re going to see some things that I don’t know where you come from and what your thought process is, but you’ll perhaps be very happy.
What do you mean by that?
We will take very strong action.
If they do such a thing, we will take very strong.
Kevin, I don’t know where you come from and what your thought process is, but I think you’ll be very happy too.
Here is from our friends at Polymarket, our partners there.
You can wager on all sorts of things.
You can even wager there on whether there’ll be American strikes.
And here it is.
Polymarket, the question: will the U.S. next strike Iran?
The choices for the bettors today, January 14th, only ten percent think it’s today.
January 15th, tomorrow, fifteen percent.
The 16th, nine percent.
The biggest number, no strikes by the end of the month, twenty-eight percent chance.
Kind of incredible and surprising to me.
Here’s my question, gentlemen.
Besides any work into your answer, anything else you might want to say about this situation?
Kevin, do you think that if the president strikes Iran, the public reaction, the political reaction would be favorable and rally around the president because everybody doesn’t like Iran?
Or do you think you’d see Tucker Carlson and AOC maybe say this isn’t a good use of American power?
Yeah, Mark, it’s a good question.
I’m of two minds on this.
A lot of people didn’t understand the situation with Venezuela.
Maduro is not a household name.
A lot of folks have a long memory about our relationship to Iran, go back to the revolution.
But they also have a long memory about our adventurism in the Middle East.
I do think there would be a rallying around the president for this.
I fully support toppling this regime.
I spent some time with the crown prince yesterday at an interview who says the number is closer to twelve thousand from what he’s been able to hear from folks on the ground.
It’s not relegated just to Tehran.
Millions of people in the streets of the capital, but in all thirty-one provinces around the country.
This is a country of ninety million Iranians, twice the size of Venezuela when it comes to population.
And they’re taking to the streets, something that we’ve seen in the past, but not to this level.
So I do think there would be a lot of support for whatever we do on the sidelines to encourage the toppling of the Ayatollah.
Larry, I try not to make every story a story about J.D. Vance, but I’m going to make this one at least a little bit about J.D. Vance.
Because I find it strange that it’s being put out there that he’s telling the president to be cautious here and to maybe do diplomacy.
Whose interest is that in to put that out that there’s the vice president?
Because if Trump does do strikes now, it seems like kind of a little embarrassing for the vice president that he didn’t get his way.
Well, if you remember the exchange on the infamous Signal chat before the strikes, it was J.D. Vance who was sending that cautious tone as well.
I think because of his military service he’s always going to be somewhat reluctant to commit military forces, even if it’s a non–boots-on-the-ground strike.
That’s sort of on brand for him.
And to answer your question, who does it serve to get it out there?
Well, frankly, it serves him.
It serves him in terms of reinforcing.
But does it serve him if there’s a strike that’s successful?
Yes, because then he said, listen, I gave the president my advice.
The strike was successful.
I support the president’s decision because he’s the commander in chief.
But it still sort of reinforces his instincts to be cautious before utilizing the military in this case.
I mean, did it hurt Joe Biden’s political fortunes because he was against the strike that ended up getting Osama bin Laden?
Yeah, I’d say it did a little bit.
But I take your point.
He became president.
Yeah, yeah.
But he had, well.
I also think there’s something else at play here with J.D. Vance though.
Because if you remember the initial reports about today’s big Greenland summit going on at the White House, it was Marco Rubio.
The Vance people wanted to make sure everybody knew Vance was there too.
And there’s sort of this good cop, bad cop dynamic going on.
Vance is urging diplomacy and Marco, based on what we’re hearing, is ready to use military pressure if necessary.
I think that’s a dynamic the vice president and frankly the White House likes.
Trump has always liked having multiple people around him giving him different types of advice.
They say that something that’s easy is like a walk in the park.
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