MAGA ATTACKED Me on CNN... it BACKFIRED!

0:00 And the massive inflation under Biden was definitely embedded

0:02 into the economy to Noah's point, but it went down.

0:04 When we're looking at the trends,

0:05 Donald Trump was handed an economy with 2.9%

0:08 inflation and spiked it on liberation day.

0:10 Was handed an economy with 2.4%

0:12 there's a difference between shooting yourself in the foot

0:14 like Trump did versus having extrinsic factors.

0:16 in the foot.

0:17 Okay, what do you call liberation day?

0:18 What do you call the Iran war?

0:19 What do you call the fact that he could

0:19 have just been steady-handed and had a better economy?

0:22 look, you don't understand how inflation operate.

0:23 Inflation is from printing money, okay?

0:26 We don't need to get into a whole economics about tariffs.

0:28 Who pays the tariff?

0:29 Well, look, we can talk No, no, I'm not saying that.

0:30 I do understand tariffs much better than you do, okay?

0:34 it?

0:33 So then who pays them?

0:34 Uh actually, it depends.

0:35 All right, everybody.

0:36 So, I went back on CNN for the first time since

0:38 the get your hand under my face viral moment, you know, all that.

0:42 And I was kind of wondering before I went on if I was

0:44 going to have a target on my back with the MAGA on the panel.

0:47 And I want you guys to watch this play

0:49 out in real time because I'm not tweaking here, right?

0:52 They both try to misrepresent what I'm saying and attack

0:55 me right off the bat in almost a coordinated manner.

0:58 Make sure you drop a like if you appreciate the fight.

1:00 Subscribe to the Adam Outler feed.

1:01 Watch until the end and check this out.

1:04 For the reality, at the start of the war,

1:05 Americans were pretty evenly divided in their support for the conflict,

1:09 but now 61% say that the campaign in Iran was a mistake,

1:13 and there is a clear generational gap, too.

1:16 While older Americans are split, 61% under the age of 35 oppose the war,

1:21 and 80% of those under 30 say there were

1:25 no sufficient reasons to attack Iran in the first place.

1:28 While 51% over the age of 65 say that there were.

1:33 Uh so, this generational divide, I think,

1:36 when it comes to war has always been a thing in America,

1:39 but it seems particularly acute right now, Adam.

1:43 Yeah, for my entire life,

1:45 the United States has been at war with some country in the Middle East,

1:48 and young people have constantly been told that this will

1:49 make us safer and make us better off.

1:52 When we look around at the world today, we are less safe and we are worse off.

1:55 Millennials grew up watching all these headlines

1:58 saying that Iraq had been, you know, defeated,

2:01 that we had taken out Saddam Hussein, and we had killed all the bad guys.

2:04 Well, that turned into a grinding counterinsurgency that cost us trillion,

2:08 a trillion dollars, and it was a catastrophe.

2:10 The same thing happened with Afghanistan,

2:12 and now Gen Z'ers are going through the same thing with Iran.

2:15 We are watching the same people who defended these first

2:18 two failed wars go on television and defend another failed war.

2:22 This war is failing.

2:23 We have not gotten any political concessions, and I'm sorry,

2:26 I'm not buying this trust the process line.

2:28 I don't trust the same people who got us into the prior wars,

2:31 amassed trillions of dollars in debts,

2:34 and are not putting America first on the global stage.

2:37 So, putting aside, perhaps for just for a moment,

2:41 even the politics of this current moment, I mean,

2:43 is it fair for young people to have that level of distrust of the people,

2:50 to Adam's point, who maybe defended the last war

2:53 and were wrong and are defending this war, too?

2:55 Yeah, I don't think so.

2:56 I think, honestly, Adam,

2:56 that's immensely ungrateful to American service personnel

2:59 and the people who keep us safe every day.

3:01 After 9/11, it was by no means guaranteed that there would be no

3:04 mass casualty terrorist attack on American soil

3:06 in the immediate aftermath of that attack,

3:07 especially since we had events in Madrid, in London, et cetera.

3:11 And after the attack on Iraq and the elimination of Saddam Hussein's regime,

3:15 we took a terror-supporting enterprise off the map.

3:18 We don't talk about Iraq anymore as a threat

3:19 to our national security because it isn't.

3:21 And those who would pretend as though Iran is not a national security threat.

3:25 As as and and are just frankly dismissive

3:28 of the extent to which American service personnel get up every

3:30 day to stop these people from executing the attacks

3:33 on American and their allies that they plan every single day.

3:36 This is a thorn in our side.

3:37 It absorbs a lot of American taxpayer dollars,

3:40 to say nothing of the energy of our service personnel.

3:42 And I just think it's just ungrateful so grateful.

3:45 the service personnel are not keeping you safe when they are.

3:48 No, I feel less safe due to the actions of our leaders.

3:50 I'm incredibly grateful for our servicemen.

3:52 You're doing

3:52 And your feelings don't make them facts.

3:54 You are doing Hold on.

3:55 Hold on.

3:55 Hold on.

3:55 Hold on.

3:56 You are doing the exact same thing.

3:57 He was talking to me.

3:58 He was talking to me.

3:59 Hold on a second, Hal.

4:00 I'll let you respond.

4:00 No one is saying that that is a problem.

4:02 You are doing the exact same thing that I just laid out in the opening.

4:05 You are telling young people they shouldn't be asking questions.

4:08 They shouldn't be questioning the people in power.

4:09 that they ask great questions about the nature of the world.

4:11 Okay, then what was ungrateful about what I said?

4:13 I said that the leaders are making us less safe, and I can prove that.

4:15 Right now, Iran has control over the Strait of Hormuz,

4:18 and that is a weapon they didn't have control of 2 months ago.

4:21 they did.

4:21 Of course

4:21 They shut down the Strait of Hormuz in the '80s.

4:23 And we opened it up in the '80s.

4:25 But by the way, What was their [laughter]

4:27 with a nuclear weapon?

4:28 You think you think gas prices are high right now?

4:30 Iran with a nuclear weapon, we'd have unlimitedly high gas prices.

4:34 They would take control of the Strait of Hormuz,

4:36 and they would blackmail the world.

4:37 And how much farther away are they from having a nuclear weapon?

4:39 Where is the enriched uranium right now?

4:40 They're they're non-existent.

4:41 is the enriched uranium right now?

4:42 to get the enriched uranium.

4:43 Where is it?

4:44 I want you to answer.

4:44 It's buried right now, but you No, where is it buried?

4:46 You're asking me.

4:47 I'm not in the classified briefings, and neither are you.

4:49 So, just be patient.

4:50 Buried.

4:50 We know it's buried in Iran.

4:51 Let me finish.

4:52 Okay.

4:52 Okay.

4:53 We are we are more safe than we

4:55 were before we took out Iran Iran's nuclear capabilities.

4:58 Absolutely more safe.

4:59 The Strait of Hormuz is going to be open, and Iran's not going to control it.

5:02 It is That is absolutely going to happen.

5:04 It doesn't It doesn't matter if it's 2 weeks or 2 months.

5:06 actually matter because economists are saying if

5:08 it's closed for a few more months,

5:09 then we're going to go into a recession.

5:10 So, it does matter.

5:11 It absolutely does matter.

5:12 predicting that because the markets are at an all-time high.

5:14 predicting that.

5:15 The markets are at an all-time high.

5:16 The markets aren't predicting it.

5:17 The inflation rates The inflation rate has stayed where it is.

5:20 And by the way, unemployment way?

5:22 has stayed low.

5:23 What was inflation at by the way?

5:25 Can you look the average American in the eye?

5:26 Just to be clear, just to be clear, inflation has ticked up.

5:31 Yes.

5:30 not stayed the same.

5:31 But Bobby, you were around for the politics

5:35 and the conflict of the last two Middle East wars.

5:39 Um I mean, what do you make of this generational debate about

5:43 whether it's wise to to going into another conflict in this region.

5:47 Well, I can't fault the logic that when

5:50 you've seen this happen through your lifetime

5:52 and you're still living with the consequences of it in one fashion or the other,

5:56 you're bound to be reluctant to get into the war.

5:59 Nobody's disputing for the fact that for a moment

6:02 that the Iranians are bad the Iranian regime are bad guys,

6:06 but when you when you hear the president and our leadership

6:10 constantly changing the explanation they're giving for why we're at war,

6:14 constantly change the timetable of how long

6:17 this is going to last and then forgetting

6:20 how long it has been going on, then you're right to to push back and say,

6:25 "Kindly give us a clearer explanation for why we're there,

6:28 how long we're going to be there for." It's not enough to say,

6:31 "Sit at this table and say it'll be over and then the the Straits

6:35 of Hormuz will be open." We've got no indication of that being the case.

6:40 When the Straits were closed, we were told this is a matter of days.

6:44 Now it's been a matter of weeks and we're no

6:47 closer to it being open than we were 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, 4 weeks ago.

6:51 me and on top of what you're saying there, I mean,

6:54 I think one of the big problems with where we are in this conflict is that very

6:59 clearly the administration has determined because they've basically

7:03 ended the the kinetic conflict of it all,

7:06 they've determined that the only way to actually get the things that we want,

7:10 which is Iran abandoning its nuclear ambitions,

7:14 um moving away from from funding terrorism,

7:17 is to get to the negotiating table, which is the same truth that existed a year

7:22 ago after they did the first set of strikes.

7:24 So, I mean, I think that's part of the problem is that war has not

7:28 necessarily gotten us the outcome that they say that we are trying to get here.

7:33 No, that and and that's because the rationale

7:36 for the war has shifted multiple times.

7:38 No one here has ever said we want a nuclear armed Iran.

7:43 That is a red herring at this point.

7:45 The only talking point that the pro-Trump folks have because

7:48 they've gotten themselves into a situation that they were unprepared for.

7:53 And what's incredibly ungrateful, you know who's incredibly ungrateful?

7:56 Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth for the men and women who are serving in this war,

8:01 who are on deployments that are extra long,

8:04 who are not getting their their ships resupplied,

8:06 who are the who don't understand what they're doing over there,

8:10 who are being taken for granted.

8:11 Our military is the greatest in the world and the men and women

8:14 who serve are the greatest in the world and they are being taken

8:17 for granted as props in a political effort by Donald Trump to make

8:22 himself feel better till he can distract

8:24 from everything else that's going on domestically.

8:26 And now he's gotten himself into a situation

8:28 where he can't even explain cogently why we're there,

8:31 what's going on, and why the American people

8:33 should have to pay the price for it.

8:34 So, that's what's going on here.

8:36 I mean, I I When I was a Republican for many years,

8:39 we were we absolutely looked at Iran as the threat

8:42 that it is and absolutely were trying to do

8:44 things to make sure that they did not continue

8:46 to be the world sponsor of terror, but this isn't it.

8:49 This is not it.

8:49 you talked about Adam you accused Adam of being ungrateful.

8:54 Um I just want you to look at these charts.

8:56 Look at what happened to public opinion when it came to the war in Afghanistan.

9:00 Was it a mistake for the US to send military forces to Afghanistan?

9:04 The war started out as incredibly popular and then it became much less popular.

9:11 So, about half of Americans said that it was

9:14 a mistake um and about half said that it was not.

9:17 The same is true of Iraq.

9:20 Incredibly popular, right decision, 72% back at the beginning of it.

9:24 And by the by the end of the conflict in 2014, it was down to 38%.

9:30 I mean, are all of these Americans ungrateful?

9:32 I mean, I I imagine many of them um have they they ended

9:36 up tasting the consequences of the war

9:39 including the impacts on their their lives,

9:41 people that they knew,

9:42 people who may not have even lost their lives

9:45 in in theater but came back forever scarred by it.

9:47 I mean, it

9:49 To quote our great friend, what I had said previously is that it is, in my view,

9:54 ungrateful to American service personnel to say that they

9:57 have not kept us safe when we do not measure That's not what he [laughter]

10:04 But I but he didn't say that.

10:05 So, you have to acknowledge

10:07 he's saying that we can't we can measure non-events,

10:10 which is to suggest that the attacks that have not happened,

10:12 which none of us are aware of, were not were not avoidable.

10:17 Because Because of the nature of these conflicts

10:18 and the conflicts themselves are what inspires the attacks.

10:20 It's almost inviting the notion that America is responsible

10:23 He didn't That's not really the argument that he's making.

10:26 The argument that he's making is that um is that the the the people

10:30 who made the arguments to go into these conflicts in the first place misled,

10:35 which is a fact, and and secondly,

10:38 that the conflicts ended up lasting a very long time,

10:41 costing a lot of American treasure, and and that those are also facts.

10:46 He didn't He didn't say it's because it's because they're you know,

10:49 they didn't keep us safe.

10:50 That's not actually what he said.

10:51 Well, that is kind of what he said.

10:53 But let's not [laughter] labor the point.

10:54 I have all the time in the world for criticisms of the president's rhetoric.

10:57 All the time in the world.

10:58 In fact, I think a lot of the reasons why the public is soured

11:00 on this is because the president never

11:01 approached Americans and said solicited their support,

11:04 told them the burdens they were expected to bear,

11:06 and told them why they were going into this.

11:07 But as important as it is to criticize the president's rhetoric,

11:09 it's also important to talk about what's happening on the ground,

11:11 and we are closer today to opening up

11:13 the strait by virtue of what we heard from Admiral

11:16 Brad Cooper today and the operation that was

11:18 engaged over the course of the last 24 hours.

11:19 Very important.

11:25 Okay, and then I want Bobby to have the last word.

11:27 Well, I I covered the war in Iraq.

11:30 Uh, I was there for all the arguments uh, going into that war in Iraq.

11:34 I remember people saying this was the major, uh, sponsor of terror.

11:37 And you point you pointed to 9/11.

11:39 Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.

11:41 And going into Iraq and toppling that regime,

11:44 as much as I, uh, hated the regime as any right-thinking people,

11:48 spawned from the direct consequence of that, the Islamic State,

11:52 also a terrorist group that came directly out of our actions in Iraq.

11:56 So, you know, if we want to look at historic historical precedents,

12:00 we should not cherry-pick little bits out of a larger

12:03 picture and pretend that the larger picture doesn't

12:05 I also want to say it spill over the Syrian To expand on my framework,

12:10 I gave a very good faith criticism of this war

12:13 and of the history of these types of wars.

12:15 And I had one person say that I was ungrateful and then

12:17 another invoked the weapons of mass

12:19 destruction that Iran could potentially be developing.

12:21 What I was trying to say is that getting military successes,

12:25 if you want to call them that, doesn't always translate to helpful,

12:28 uh, outcomes for the American people.

12:30 We've seen this.

12:31 We killed Saddam Hussein.

12:32 We took out the bad guy.

12:33 And it hurt us.

12:34 And war is the most just war since World War II.

12:38 Because Iran has killed thousands of Americans.

12:40 Saddam Hussein hadn't killed thousands Americans.

12:42 Afghanistan hadn't either.

12:43 But he ran on no new wars.

12:44 No, I'm saying I'm saying of course that

12:46 But I'm saying arguably this he should have ran on it.

12:49 It's a 47-year war, I thought.

12:50 to the Congress and the American people if it was so justified then.

12:53 He may do that, but but

12:54 Ultimately, I don't think he did it because he has more powers I can think of.

12:58 When he said it was so justified I'm using

12:58 your own logic where you said it was so justified,

13:01 the most just war since World War II.

13:03 it could be the most

13:04 Then why didn't he go ahead and present it to the American people that way?

13:07 Iran has killed thousands of Americans.

13:09 It's awful.

13:10 It's stupid.

13:10 Okay.

13:11 Iran is a threat to the world.

13:13 Okay, if they get nuclear weapons,

13:14 they would control the Strait of Hormuz anytime they wanted to.

13:17 People wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

13:19 They do not need nuclear weapons to to control You do

13:21 not need nuclear weapons to to control the Strait of Hormuz.

13:25 The Strait of Hormuz are right there.

13:26 You can't change geography.

13:28 They need small speedboats.

13:29 They just need to issue a threat.

13:32 What happened in the last in in the last few weeks?

13:34 They didn't actually They didn't do anything.

13:36 All they had to say was we're going

13:39 to shut the straits and the markets did the rest.

13:41 The insurance companies refused to insure ships.

13:43 Shipping companies refused to go.

13:44 They do not need nuclear weapons to shut down the straits.

13:48 in the Horn of Africa and the Strait of Malacca is resolvable in Hormuz.

13:51 All right, Bobby.

13:52 Thank you very much for being here.

13:53 Appreciate you.

13:54 Next for us, at the end of the day, Spirit Airlines, and by the way,

13:57 their competitors, do not believe that uh

14:01 the government the the alternative here,

14:04 which would have been for Trump to bail them out,

14:07 would have been a good solution to this problem, either.

14:09 Yeah, I mean, you can completely ignore what the CEO said if you want,

14:12 but the reality is these gas and oil

14:14 spikes have completely ruined a lot of companies.

14:17 I mean, bankruptcies overall, you want to talk about Spirit in particular,

14:20 bankruptcies overall among large corporations are

14:22 at the highest point in 15 years.

14:23 Let me finish.

14:24 They had a spike of over 2 months and go up

14:26 Farm bankruptcies are at the highest point, I mean,

14:29 they've gone up 46% since Donald Trump took office.

14:31 Is that because of Biden, too?

14:33 Are the farm bankruptcies up 46% because of Biden, too?

14:35 Uh there there was a lot of fertilizer issues around uh farms, but

14:39 Because Because of what?

14:40 Because of tariffs?

14:41 No, I mean, this is it.

14:41 This We're talking about bankruptcies

14:43 and that that's exactly what we're talking about.

14:44 and we didn't have bankruptcies there.

14:46 The massive inflation under Biden was definitely embedded into the economy,

14:48 to Noah's point, but it went down.

14:50 When we're looking at the trends, Donald Trump was handed an economy with 2.9%

14:54 inflation and spiked it on liberation day.

14:56 was handed an economy with 2.4%

14:58 there's a difference between shooting yourself in the foot

15:00 like Trump did versus having extrinsic factors.

15:02 in the foot.

15:02 Okay, what do you call liberation day?

15:03 What do you call the Iran war?

15:04 What do you call the fact that he could

15:05 have just been steady handed and had a better economy?

15:07 I mean, look, you don't understand how inflation operate.

15:09 Inflation is from printing money, okay?

15:11 We don't need to get into a whole economics of tariffs.

15:13 pays the tariff?

15:14 Who pays the tariff?

15:14 Well, look, we can talk No, no,

15:16 we're not getting into I do understand tariffs much better than you do, okay?

15:19 Who pays it?

15:19 So, then who pays them?

15:20 Uh actually, it depends.

15:21 Uh China paid a lot of those tariffs.

15:23 I know that for a fact.

15:24 And the sound of free economy they

15:26 areas that they are tax on the American consumer and

15:28 well, then then corporate taxes shouldn't be there either.

15:30 That's a tax on the American consumer.

15:32 Do you know about tariffs?

15:33 I wonder if we could return back to the spirit of this for a moment because I

15:36 I do think this is another example of us

15:37 having kind of two things happening at once.

15:39 It is certainly the case that there was a a ruling, but yes,

15:43 the government has the ability to to intervene in various things

15:45 in the economy to regulate whether or not mergers can take place.

15:48 The question is whether or not this merger

15:50 would have helped this company survive these difficult times.

15:53 And it seems likely that it could have.

15:55 the All right, let me know what you guys thought in the comments.

15:57 Again, if you want to see more of these CNN hits,

15:59 all you have to do is drop a like, share this video around.

16:01 I love you all.

16:02 Peace out.