Overtime – Episode #728: Gillian Tett & Bret Stephens

Speaker 00:00

[upbeat music] Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maher.

Bill Maher· Host0:06

[clapping] All right, he's a Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion columnist for The New York Times, Bret Stephens. [cheering] [clapping] And she's the head of King's College, Cambridge, my old job- [laughs] ... and a Financial Times act- columnist, Gillian Tett. Okay. [cheering] [clapping] All right. Bret, this is for you. How can Trump wrap up the Iran war and claim success? Oh, what a question.

Bret Stephens· Guest0:27

Um, I think the blockade is a good idea. Uh, I think, uh, if the Iranians don't come to terms... By the way, I think they'll be under a great deal of economic pressure very soon as their, uh, inability to fund themselves becomes, becomes more, uh, uh, severe. I think he may have to stage operations to seize the enriched uranium. It's difficult, but doable. That was the purpose of this mission. Stopping Iran from getting a nuclear bomb is a very worthy objective.

Bill Maher· Host0:58

Yeah.

Bret Stephens· Guest0:58

And if then that leads- [clapping] ... not now or even in six months, but in a year's time, that pressure leads to the end of this terrible regime, the world will be much better off, uh, for it. So, I, right now the war feels like- [clapping] ... stopping World War II in, in 1943. You can say, "Well, it's a failure," but we should continue because the objective of preventing this uniquely evil regime from getting these uniquely devastating weapons is a good objective for the United States.

Bill Maher· Host1:24

But you don't wanna go back to bombing the country, do you?

Bret Stephens· Guest1:26

I would... No, only to the, for, for the sake