n reasonable security and/or a reasonable election or an election that looked reasonable. The only thing we know is it looked rigged. We don't know that it was. So I don't know. I wouldn't obsess about that. I would concentrate on the security part.

And I want to ask you a question. Have I ever gone too far in talking about the FBI involvement in the January 6 crowds? Because my memory of it is that I've largely avoided that topic because I didn't think it was terribly important and I didn't think we'd ever know for sure. Does anybody have any memory of me saying something that's now debunked? Because I want to fact check myself. If I ever went too far and said oh clearly that was full of FBI agents well then I have to debunk myself. But I don't think I did. I think I held back. So and the reason I say this it's important for you to check my work because a lot of what I do is make predictions.

All right. Well Hamas is acting like they might be willing to temporarily allow Israel's military to be in Gaza in return for some of the hostages but not all of them. And the thinking is that Hamas might have been waiting for somebody to come to their rescue but once Assad and Syria fell and Iran was crippled they knew nobody would come. So now they might be getting more flexible. And there's some question about whether they try to do it before Biden's out of office etc.

Here is my take. Let me teach you something about negotiation. This is not one. Trump is going to teach them what a negotiation is. And here's what I think he's going to do. He's going to say releasing the hostages is not a negotiation. You're going to do that or we will destroy you with no mercy. And as well as we'll kill all the hostages. They'll all be dead but you'll definitely be dead and you will lose everything forever. So the way you negotiate is you say these things are negotiable but there are some things that are not. Hostages are never negotiable. Because the minute you negotiate for hostages you're going to get more hostages. Negotiating for hostages increases the number of hostages. Not right away but once they learn the business model works. More hostages. You absolutely have to kill the hostages if you want it to stop. Meaning you have to say to Hamas here's the deal. If you want anything you got to start with giving us all the hostages and then we can talk. But without the hostages every one of you is dead. Gaza will never be for the Palestinians. There'll never be a Palestinian state. It'll never be a conversation and you will never be free in any sense. We'll take everything from you. Everything. So if you treat the hostages as a negotiation you just make everything worse. I don't think Trump's the only one who might even understand that. And the way he's talking he did exactly what I said. Remember he said if those hostages are still there when I get sworn in they will be held to pay. He means that. That's not a bluff. Here's what I would not expect. That he gets in office and just starts acting like it's a regular negotiation and the hostages are part of it. No way. The hostages cannot be part of a negotiation. That's your opening bid to be allowed to negotiate. If Hamas wants to negotiate that's the ticket. You pay that first. That cannot be part of the negotiation anyway.

I guess Trump was asked if he trusted Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and he had the best Trump answer. Quote, "I don't trust anybody." Thank you. You know every once in a while he says something that's so obvious and so commonsensical you wonder why you've never heard it before from somebody in his position. Because typically you wouldn't want a president to say I don't trust anybody. But if you live in the real world you've watched the people that you trusted that were on your inner circle selling books. Your inner circle and you know people that you trusted and then they go out there and they're talking crap about you on the news. No he shouldn't trust anybody. He should not trust anybody. Well I'm going to take that back. He should trust his family. I think he can trust his family. But beyond that trusting other people is pretty sketchy. So yeah I think he means this as a little bit hyperbole. You know not really 100% but I like the fact that he said it out loud. It was a good answer anyway.

So there's talk about Israel and maybe the US taking out Iran's nuclear program. So I guess their nuclear program is allegedly within months of being able to create a nuclear weapon because they've already reached, they've refined enough materials that they could make 12 bombs or something like that. Now here's my question. Do you think we'd know that if they did make a weapon? If somebody is within months of being able to make a weapon don't you think they already made one? Or is building the actual weapon what Iran would know? If anybody found out that it would require immediately taking out their leadership just because they made the weapon. It could be that Iran knows that if they made one and they have to worry about spies because Israel must have great spies in Iran by now. If anybody found out they actually made one then I think it's just a green light for complete destruction of the regime. Would you agree? But they'd have to get it when that first one was like just brand new before it could be operational and launched. Because first you'd build it on the ground before you put it on a missile or something. So if they get it before it's on a missile and they know for sure where it is and that it got built they would do a lot more than destroy the weapon. They would have to take out the regime. And nobody would even blink because they'd say all right yeah nuclear weapon you had to do that. You know people would still criticize Israel but they would completely understand. You would completely understand. So it could be that there's something keeping Iran from taking that last step. But what I worry about is when the news tells you that it's only a month away that really means they already made it. You just don't know it yet. Right? That's what it feels like. I worry that they already have one and they're just good at hiding.

Anyway apparently Trump's team is considering helping Israel if they were to go after the nuclear program. I guess we have better bunker buster bombs that we could make available. And now that the Syrian airspace is cleared Israel can fly over Syria without worrying about getting shot down. And they can fly over Iran because they've already taken out Iran's anti-aircraft. But somebody said but you still have to go over a part of Iraq. Does Israel feel that Iraq has no anti-aircraft that would be a risk? I feel like there's a lot of bad stuff in Iraq. I don't know enough about Iraq to know if it's really dangerous or not anyway. We'll keep an eye on that. The Trump team thinks that maybe just economic pressure might be enough. I don't know. I don't think anybody wants Iran to become a failed state. So as bad as the regime is they don't know what would replace it and what kind of chaos that would cause. So we'll see. I think that Trump will try a grand peace deal something that would bring Iran into the world where everybody can be happy. It won't be something they'll love but maybe. I think Trump could meet with the Ayatollah. What do you think? Do you think that could ever happen? Could you imagine Trump actually meeting with the Ayatollah to negotiate? I think it's possible. I wouldn't bet on it but it's possible. He's the only person I can imagine doing it. But who knows. Who knows.

All right that's all I got for you today. I'm not sure if there's still time to order the Dilbert calendar for your gift giving. Let's say today it's close. I think there's a good chance if you ordered it today you'd get it before Christmas Day. But we're getting to those last minutes. If it did come it wouldn't be long after Christmas so you'd still be good.

All right. Did I forget any big news? Yeah. As long as you get it before January 1st you won't be too unhappy. Current report is 25 agents. Now the current report is 25 informants. We don't know if they were acting as agents or they were agents. According to Politico, Fetterman is looking at a 2028 run. Oh man he'd be trouble. Honestly he'd be trouble. Remember I said that the Democrats can't possibly recover unless they have an unusually charismatic candidate. I don't think he can make it because he's white. So they'd have to be desperate to nominate a white man. It'll be fun to watch.

Hey Joshua I see your post on me